Mrs Beeton’s Ghost Net was developed in response to John Masefield’s poem Sea Fever, for the Quay Arts Open exhibition, 2017.
The piece takes a female gaze and examines the domestic position of women at the end of the Victorian period in Britain. Masefield expresses a longing for a physical engagement with the sea; an environment he finds liberating. These exterior experiences are seen in my own work with detachment, through the masque of a netted window. Further discussion of the process can be found here on my blog.
The term Ghost Net is a conservation term that refers to large fishing nets that have become detached from their vessels. As modern nets are made from materials that do not rot in the ocean environment the nets can remain in the sea for years, covering many nautical miles, and present a significant threat of suffocation to the marine life that becomes entangled in them.
The net is hand knitted using fine fishing line using pattern no. 339: Mrs Beeton‘s Pattern for Knitted Net Curtains.
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