Boody

Today I went with a friend to a Heritage Event organised by the Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles. It was at Beamish, the open air museum near Durham.

In June 2014 a major exhibition opens in Tate Britain, London, focusing on Folk Art. Some of the items which will be on display are coming from the huge collection that Beamish have. This was an opportunity to learn about the items that have been chosen and which will be sent to London for the exhibition. It was a good day, during which we were given a behind the scenes look at the way in which the massive collection of artifacts is stored.

There were three quilts that are going down to the exhibition and we were able to look at them closely, but it was some of the other items of more unusual folk art that caught my attention.

This is a piece of what is known as Boodyware or Boudieware. Pictures were made by arranging bits of broken crockery into putty on a tin tray. Apparently the tradition is only found in the North East and the South West of England. Children were the ones who collected the bits from waste land and there was a lady with us who remembered as a child collecting boody, although she didn’t then know what it was used for.

This is a piece that will be going down to London, so it you were to visit the exhibition next summer and see it, remember – you saw it here first!

For anyone interested, there are pictures of the quilts that will be going down to London here.