CAREN GARFEN

AUGUSTUS AND EDIE, 2016

Garfen’s ‘Augustus and Edie’, couched in funereal black frames, is perhaps the only overtly dark piece in the show. Two narrow, hand-stitched samplers, their letters barely a millimetre tall, tell stories, Edward Lear-style, of anorexia and body dysmorphia. Breath-taking in their tender minuteness, here is the wit of the stitch writ large. Ellen Bell, Embroidery magazine

This artwork is inspired by The Story of Augustus by Heinrich Hoffmann, 1798-1874, a tale of a plump and hearty boy who would not eat his soup. Day after day the young lad pushes his food away until he ‘scarcely weighs a sugar plum’. The poem ends in tragedy. I have written a parody of Augustus, a tale of Edie, a bright and glowing pearl’ who refuses to eat….

Measurement: 22cm x 28cm x 1cm (2 frames)

Process: Hand stitch

Materials: Textile, silk threads

Exhibited in:

Wit of the Stitch, Ruthin Crafts Centre, North Wales (2016)

13th International London Eating Disorder Conference, University College London (2017)

BEAT Eating Disorder International Conference, Imperial College London (2018)

What’s Going On Upstairs, The Knitting & Stitching Show, Alexandra Palace, London (2018)

What’s Going On Upstairs, The Knitting & Stitching Show, The RDS, Simmonscourt, Dublin (2018)

What’s Going On Upstairs, The Knitting & Stitching Show, Convention Centre, Harrogate (2018)

East Midlands Mental Health Service Innovators Conference, First Steps, University of Derby (2019)