Scrolls; colour and worn cloth

The Hinton House Bed headboard as an object to draw, as a design ingredient is... juicy. It is delicious, it is mouth-watering.

The scrolls are challenging to the dexterity of my hands; they curve and undulate in such an organic way that they seem alive, as if they have been startled momentarily mid-growth. I have pushed, dragged and scratched lines around the page trying to capture the energy of them.

The colour is dense, worn, faded and bruised. The cloth is scuffed in some parts and pressed smooth and naked in others.

Dust has rested in the fibres, and creates false shadows that make it hard to draw.

Bedtime stories

Art historians, curators and conservators please look away now.

I am about to misuse your terminology and misrepresent years of your painstaking work, as I describe some of the features of the Hinton House bed 1700 - 1710.

In the drawing above, on the left hand side is a sketch of the interior of the tester, which is an original feature of the bed. The posts that hold up the tester were added later - I know this because Ian the furniture conservator told me about it on Monday- a practical history lesson that he delivered from the top of ladders, with tape measure in hand.

The restoration of the Hinton House Bed is a big project, due to start in September - it will return the bed to its former design: the posts will be removed, and the tester will be suspended from either the ceiling or bolted to the wall behind. The suspended method is called a 'flying tester' or an 'angel' bed, both of which are such visually evocative terms that I want to crawl beneath the cloth and inside the woodwork to be part of the adventure.

The valances are red silk damask and velvet, and there is enough existing cloth to re-cover the headboard and internal valances. The outer curtains will be specially woven. Ian noted the narrative at play - as you draw back the outer curtains, you are taken deeper into the history of the piece.

The team will be working on much of the restoration in situ, so the room will become a working conservation studio, but it will be open to the public on occasion, so that work in progress can be followed.

Top photo: courtesy of Temple Newsam House.

Let the drawing begin

It's always a good sign when my fingers start itching to draw.

It didn't happen straight away when I arrived at Temple Newsam. Initially, I was overwhelmed by the history of the house and the artifacts; every fact, date, key figure, definition that I didn't know felt like an obstacle between me and the collection.

The Hinton House Bed sparks an interest in me that - well, I'd love to say 'transcends' but perhaps it's more accurate to say - 'distracts me from' this paralysing preoccupation. I think that a deeper knowledge of the history of the textiles and interiors at TN is fundamental to developing this project - what Polly calls my 'obsession with definitions'- but the Hinton House Bed is providing something for me to grab onto with both hands: it's pulling me now, on this journey through time.

The Hinton House Bed

Over the past few days at Temple Newsam I have been drawing the Hinton House Bed.

With a drawing board, pen and coloured pencils, I have been moving my green office chair around the room and making sense of the shape of the bed from different angles. The flock and braiding that covered the twisting scrolls of the headboard has worn in patches; the gold braiding looks scuffed, and tarnished. Polly says that's because at some point years ago it was cleaned heavy-handedly, and images fly into my head of a red-faced washerwoman scrubbing it threadbare.