establishing the structure
it seems that i needed a project like this at the moment, i have been making steady progress and am pleased with the process so far - right at the start i had identified my main focus as my great grandfather Adelphe and his family - i did my usual thing of coming up with lots of themes and motifs which could be incorporated but realised that i wanted to keep the main elements simple but use pins and beads to embellish and emphasise
i've started with a copy of Adelphe's last letter home, written to his elder daughter Simone, later my grandmother, in early July 2016 - he sends her birthday wishes and a small aluminium ring he has made for her - he writes of the incessant and deafening sound of the mortar fire bombarding the enemy lines - a letter which must have had thousands of equivalents being written in trenches on both sides at that time
after some digital manipulation i have printed some of the text onto fabric - this will be the background for motifs representing the family:
for Adelphe i have chosen the Bleuet de France - i had come across this in my earlier research for our family gathering in 2016
i had to dig around a bit for something to represent his wife Marie, like him a teacher at the village school in Camiers - looking into the home front activities in France i found the Ligue Patriotique des Françaises - formed in 1902 as a political organisation for catholic women, it's members were involved in fund raising and supportive activities during WW1
i don't know if my great grandmother was a member, but she was a devout catholic and i like to think that her social conscience would have led her to being involved in more than her strictly professional and domestic responsibilities - the insignia for this organisation was a Marguerite
for the three children, Simone, Marthe and Jean, small hearts were the obvious choice - in blue, white and red echoing the french tricolor
and the finishing touch had to be a Fleur de Lis
these elements also provide the colour palette of blue/azure, white/silver, red/gules and yellow/gold - so that helpfully limits my colour choices - as a person who dislikes unexplained restrictions i find this reassuringly obvious, a good example of how limits can be liberating - now i am free to be creative around those basic elements
i've started with a copy of Adelphe's last letter home, written to his elder daughter Simone, later my grandmother, in early July 2016 - he sends her birthday wishes and a small aluminium ring he has made for her - he writes of the incessant and deafening sound of the mortar fire bombarding the enemy lines - a letter which must have had thousands of equivalents being written in trenches on both sides at that time
after some digital manipulation i have printed some of the text onto fabric - this will be the background for motifs representing the family:
for Adelphe i have chosen the Bleuet de France - i had come across this in my earlier research for our family gathering in 2016
i had to dig around a bit for something to represent his wife Marie, like him a teacher at the village school in Camiers - looking into the home front activities in France i found the Ligue Patriotique des Françaises - formed in 1902 as a political organisation for catholic women, it's members were involved in fund raising and supportive activities during WW1
i don't know if my great grandmother was a member, but she was a devout catholic and i like to think that her social conscience would have led her to being involved in more than her strictly professional and domestic responsibilities - the insignia for this organisation was a Marguerite
for the three children, Simone, Marthe and Jean, small hearts were the obvious choice - in blue, white and red echoing the french tricolor
and the finishing touch had to be a Fleur de Lis
these elements also provide the colour palette of blue/azure, white/silver, red/gules and yellow/gold - so that helpfully limits my colour choices - as a person who dislikes unexplained restrictions i find this reassuringly obvious, a good example of how limits can be liberating - now i am free to be creative around those basic elements
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