Needle Sharp – a New Exhibition by Polly Mortimer and Lucy Fisher
Last Friday, sisters Polly Mortimer and Lucy Fisher launched their exhibition at the Tavistock Centre in North London. Needle Sharp consists of over 40 threadworks in wool and cotton, inspired mainly by industrial structures and urban scenery. Each took either wall of the long art space, creating a dynamic and consistent display.
I had a pleasure to interview both ladies and find out more about their respective art journeys.
Polly Mortimer and Lucy Fisher
Polly was introduced to tapestry at a very young age, using little kits when she was five. Since then, it’s been a constant in her life. “I spent quite a lot of my twenties in psychiatric ’care’, in inverted commas,” she recalls. “I found knitting a really good thing to do there because it was easy and portable. Then I had kids and I used to read them the Macmillan Field Guide to Geological Structures. I would look at the pictures of these gorgeous constructions, and then tried to do abstracts of those. From there, I just carried on.”
In this show, Polly featured her entire output. “They’re all my works – I don’t have any others,” she said, explaining that threadwork is more time-consuming than it may seem. The bigger pieces took her a year. “It does take a long time to come up with a concept and be happy with it. I’m very fussy about the colours and that sort of thing,” she reveals before sharing that she works while watching dramas on the telly or listening to radio.
Although time-consuming, craft is notably beneficial to her wellbeing. “Knitting, basic weaving, making rugs… There’s something about its repetitiveness, the sort of sameness of it. I do find it very therapeutic,” she admits.
Needle Sharp private view on 2 August
Polly, who now works as the library manager at the British Psychotherapy Foundation, says that psychotherapy is in her DNA. “I’m very pleased to have found psychotherapy, as opposed to psychiatry. You can say that I’m anti-psychiatry – through lived experience,” she reflects. Through her work, she can come to terms with unpleasant experiences at mental health institutions. “I find some works of mine very cathartic to do, like the asylums I was in. Some of them are no longer there… It sort of ratifies the fact that what happened to me there wasn’t great,” she explains.
I was particularly interested in Polly’s series of Soviet bus stops, which was inspired by a photo book of the same name by Christopher Herwig. “I was given that book by my daughter-in-law for Christmas,” she said. “He went around the former USSR, photographing and cataloguing lots of stuff. I found those industrial-looking bus stops, as well as the settings, just fascinating. They’re in extraordinary landscapes of Kazakhstan, or in the middle of Moldova – places I just won’t visit. I was really inspired to do them, and I think they came out really well. Herwig’s latest book is about Russian dachas, and I’m quite tempted to do those.”
Polly feels that crafting is often not given the same recognition as other forms of art, and always comes second to painting and printmaking. “What I’m trying to do is to take craft away from being shoved into the craft box; to bring it out and show that what you can do with it can actually be equal to what people do with art. And that it is art.”
Soviet Bus Stops by Polly Mortimer
Lucy went to an art school when she was 17, but eventually dropped out. “I had a miserable time,” she says. “After that, I didn’t think of myself as an artist for quite a long time.” She went on to study Medieval Art History at a university, and later worked as a sub-editor and writer for such publications as PC Magazine, Time and The Week.
But eventually, she started creating again. “Polly was doing her geological structures and I was privately experimenting with painting and drawing. Then I thought, why not do this as a tapestry? I did some and I put them away. Polly discovered them and said, ‘These are lovely, you absolutely need to do more’. So, I did. When I retired, I had more time, and it went on from there.”
Lucy Fisher and Polly Mortimer
Her tapestries are based mainly on photographs of the urban scene, many of which she takes herself while walking in the streets. Pictured are prominent London landmarks, such as Canary Wharf and Waterloo Bridge, as well as local streets and parks around Hackney and Camden. “As photography became cheaper and easier, I took to snapping the city I’d lived in since I was a teenager,” she says. “And there’s Flickr and Facebook. Whatever it is that you’d like to take a picture of, there’ll be other people doing the same. It’s a little underground movement, I think.”
Lucy is planning to take her art beyond tapestry, and branch out into other mediums. “I’ve done quite a lot of watercolours, and some oils and pastels. This year was going to be the year when I do an oil painting. I did that for about 6 months and I came to a stop, but I’ll pick it up again.”
Artworks by Lucy Fisher
For Polly, this isn’t the first time showing her works at the Tavistock. In the last couple of years, she took part in our open exhibitions. The Tavistock seems to have a recurring presence in her life. “One of my friends, a social worker, has done a course here. I know people who’ve been here for counselling, and I used to come to the library when I was working at the Minster Centre. You do fantastic things here.”
Needle Sharp by Lucy Fisher and Polly Mortimer runs until 29 August 2024 at the Tavistock Centre, 120 Belsize Lane, London NW3 5BA.
