Thoughts on Karen’s 105th birthday As I have often pointed out, Karen and I share the same birthday, 8 May. I have also remarked, without a hint of envy or jealousy, that my own modest birthday celebrations were often overshadowed by those held in honour of the illustrious Karen. Be that as it may, without…
Posted byKatrina Finch
It is with great sadness that we must announce the death, on 16 January 2025, of our friend Tove Engelhardt Mathiassen, weaver, ethnographer, museum curator, textile researcher, author … Tove’s article on Gerda Henning, Karen Finch’s teacher of weaving at the Copenhagen School for Decorative Arts in the 1940s, can be found here. Up to…
Posted byKatrina Finch
It is now six years since Karen died and today we celebrate what would have been her 103rd birthday. Karen loved to celebrate her birthday which is why each year we mark it on her website. For her birthday this year we are publishing an article by Dr Philip Sykas about Karen’s treasured collection of…
Posted byPhilip Sykas
A group of six weaving reeds preserved by Karen for many years was uncovered during the house move from Ealing. Their precise origin had become forgotten, but it is likely that these old and fragile reeds would have been discarded if not for Karen’s recognition of their historical value. All six reeds are constructed from…
A series of photographs of the Bolton Heald and Reed Works thought to date around 1913 was the subject of a short article that appeared on this website last year. At that time, it was difficult to find anything more than cursory coverage of heald and reed making in historical, technical or craft literature. However,…
Posted byKatrina Finch
It is five years since Karen died on 15 April 2018 but we still miss her powerful presence. In that sense what we wrote when she died: “We shall forever miss the extraordinary person Karen was, whose smile and enthusiasm for life shone a radiant glow over even the most mundane”. remains true. We try…
Posted byAlan Cohen
Last year we announced that we would be marking Karen’s centenary on May 8 2021 by publishing new material on the site. We haven’t published as much as we would have liked but the arrival of what would have been Karen’s 101st has acted as a spur. We are pleased to draw attention to: We…
Posted byKatrina Finch
Guest Post Tove Engelhardt Mathiassen, Guest scholar at The Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen. Tove Engelhardt Mathiassen is trained as a crafts teacher with weaving as her main subject and as an ethnographer and social anthropologist at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. She has curated large exhibitions and has published extensively about historical…
As important as healds and reeds are to the weaving process, little has been documented about their history or production. Alfred Barlow cursorily encapsulated the developments in heald making: ‘Healds were formerly made by hand by means of a reel, &c., and many are still formed so. […] Heald-making machines are often of very complicated…
Posted byKatrina Finch
Guest Post Tina Sinding Møller Dam, Karen’s niece In many ways my auntie Karen was like a female Peter Pan. Very modern and with the capacity for seizing the right moment in her own very visionary, clever way. What she believed in, she aimed for, and turned into reality. And like Peter Pan her arena…
Posted byKatrina Finch
Guest Post James Bulman-May, Karen’s nephew The warp and woof On the 100th birthday of my aunt Karen Finch née Sinding Møller, I would like to honour her achievements and independent spirit. I was fortunate to have Aunt Karen in London, and more so because she shared her home with family and friends. To me,…
Posted byKatrina Finch
Birthday greetings To: Karen; Alan; Ellen-May and Ayesha (who is celebrating her 40th birthday) 8th May is a magical date in our family calendar, believing as we do that sharing a birthday date confers a special relationship between people and families. Despite not being with us, Karen remains at the heart of this day of…