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HIGH STREET

310 x 295 mm

David Evans 1979

This is a vintage one. When I had my restaurant Le Bol a Tout Faire in Malvern between 1979 and 1981, I had only recently started to needlepoint. How I had the nerve to hang the results on the walls of the restaurant’s dining room, I don’t know but several of my early efforts found favour and people bought them! One was bought by an Australian who had come to Malvern to pay homage at a local Grail site known as the Morgan Motor Car Works. He said it was a present for his wife. I knew it wasn’t but then surely, real men don’t buy cushions, do they?

The HIGH STREET cushion was never meant to be sat upon, even in the most uncomfortable Morgan and originally, for some unfathomable reason except poverty, I filled the inside with polystyrene packaging chips. It was then pinned to a backboard covered in the same fabric and hung with a companion piece which was pinned below it – the legend on the latter read: FOR SALE. I had had intentions of creating a complete high street of shop-window awnings but I fell at the first fence of good intentions and this was the only one to see the light of day.

Recently, the sewing thread holding the polystyrene came undone and the chips began to fall out. In deciding to repair the seam, I re-filled the cushion with a proper pad.

Cushion made up by Yours Truly.