Brown Linen – Jeanette Sendler

On this day ten years ago, the Brown Linen exhibition opened at St Andrews Museum.

Following the success of a highly productive artist’s residency with Fife Arts Co-operative in Newburgh, Jeanette Sendler put together a body of work which was inspired by the town, its history and traditions.
The name, ‘Brown Linen’ indicated the fact that Newburgh never produced ‘White Linen’ which eventually brought about the death of the village’s cottage weaving industry.

150 years after the hand-loom industry of Fife come to an end, Jeanette learned to weave in Newburgh. The jute history of Dundee and Fife influenced her choice of linen and jute as materials, and she created fabric bearing patterns adapted from the floor cloth and lino dating from the 1870s to the 1940s.

The challenge for Janette was to work the woven material into 3-dimensional shapes to bring alive the people behind the industry and its history in Newburgh. The show therefore represented a culmination of old and new skills.

More information about the residency, and Jeanette can be found in our archive.