Gill Hedley

When Ann Sutton was a small girl she and her mother went from home in Stoke-on-Trent to Altrincham, Cheshire, to visit Auntie Elsie who ran a high quality bespoke dressmaking business. Her showroom was not an easy place in which to entertain a toddler so Ann was plonked down in a changing room with a cheval mirror but her reflection did not divert her. Instead, she was given a swatch of fabric samples. The plain navy blue cloth was boring; the next, with a single white pinstripe in the warp, began to hold her interest. The third sample had a second horizontal white line woven in the weft: Evidently I was very pleased with these three pages and turned them back and forth seeing how plain became stripe became check, until it was time for tea.

Gill is a writer, an independent curator and a consultant on contemporary visual arts.