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Yarns

'Yarns' is a woolen representation of an oral history. It is a pun on the phrase 'to spin a yarn' meaning to tell a story.  The work draws on traditional uses of textiles to tell stories. It plays with the long-standing symbolism of yarn as stories, histories and the passage of time.  Symbolism: sharing (women's) stories Many people know that that  “to ‘spin a yarn’ is to tell a tale” .  Patriarchal definitions hold ‘spinning yarn’ as  “originally a nautical term dating from about 1800” .  However  Bill Beavis and Richard G. McCloskey  suggest these definition overlook the term's older antecedents. They recognise that 'spinning yarn' sounds like a 'salty expression' with many thinking that it originated from wet-weather days when crews 'spinning' together yarns of old rope while telling stories. They go on to claim that "spinning yarn was carried on ashore long before it was at sea" and the phrase 'spinning yarn
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