Fibre Optics
Yasmine Seale, Apollo
September 2021
The studio is luminous, compact, tiled with the clay hexagons more commonly found further south, and in this honeycomb frame a hum of rapt activity is rising. Spools of crimson thread come off well-ordered shelves. Three women are moving furniture, setting a stage for serious play. They carefully unwind the thread, coil it from one end of a workbench to the other, secure it with loose knots and begin a cyclic journey, looping and looping until the strands are held in tension. Sheila Hicks (b. 1934), dressed in lemon pleats, conducts their movement. In English, in French, in final gestures, decisions are made. Deeper shades of yarn fly down a ladder. A marriage of colours is being improvised. What are they constructing? On the far wall hangs an answer: a mass of silver tresses, cinched in green and blue. A brilliant finish suggests silk. It is like the sea going into battle. It demands to be touched. […]