Kitchen Suicide 2003

My obsession with Sylvia Plath reached it's height during this work. Kitchen Suicide 2003. A series of kitchen textiles inspired by Plaths baking, when she was supposed to be working on her first collection. She probably spent more time cooking than writing. Quite ironic really that she felt she was living in the shadow of a well established male poet, yet she still embraced her role as housewife, poet and mother, even if it did eventually kill her. This was my final project on my HND Textiles course studied at Newcastle College. The work featured in an exhibition in Poole, Dorset called The Word Art, an exhibition of artworks inspired by literature. The installation was designed like a kitchen in minature form to give the feeling of isolation and lonliness. A sound piece was added to the exhibtion which consisted of a series of poems called the kitchen suicide poems written in response to Plaths work.

Here is an extract from one of the poems from the installation

Serendipity Sweethearts

I said we were supposed to meet that day
not like the fete at the fair
but the other kind

Serendipity sweethearts
but I was still high from
camping in a field for a week

living off other peoples matresses
and emergency underwear

You were high too
nearly 6ft I'd say
me being only 5'3 and a quarter
it made all the difference

You had your ryvita with brie
and I'd bought my sandwich from Boots
and you'd make dresses from old curtains
and I'd knit wire for a purse

and then I'd curse when the sharp edge scraped my skin
and you said
cotton was practical.