The blog is a place for Karen’s family and friends to post news and updates relating to her legacy and the textile world.
If you’d like to contribute a piece to the blog please drop us an email.
Please feel free to join the discussion by using the comments section at the bottom of each blog post.
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Karen's centenary
It was just by chance in 2017 that I came across a reference to the Oral History Project of the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation (FAIC) in an issue of the IIC’s (International Institute for Conservation) journal. It mentioned undertaking an oral history with Karen. Dr Joyce Hill Stoner was mentioned as leading the project. With remarkable efficiency… [Read more]
Karen's centenary
My sister would have been a hundred years old, had she still lived on May the 8th 2021. She was born at our farm in Jutland, Meldgaard, situated near a village, Rødding, to the north east of Viborg. She was the eldest of eight children and a beautiful child. My father said that he did not mind that she was… [Read more]
Karen's centenary
When Karen came to live with us in Bisterne Avenue in 2004, she was still fairly mobile despite very severe arthritic pains in her back and hips. In those early days, it was not unknown for her to pick up her crutches and walk on her own round the block - no mean enterprise considering that we live at the… [Read more]
Karen's centenary
The folk custom of hanging funeral garlands in churches was one of many topics that would have been raised in the wide-ranging discussions that generally followed Karen Finch’s weekly lectures to first year students on the Textile Conservation course in 1980/81. Customs involving textile objects that connect our lives to a more distant past formed a persistent undercurrent to our… [Read more]
Karen's centenary
To mark this year of Karen’s centenary, we begin the publication of the regular lectures which Karen gave as principal of the Textile Conservation Centre in Hampton Court Palace between 1975 and 1986. The introductory lecture, and the Appendices that follow, provide us with a good flavour of Karen’s approach to textile conservation and its teaching. The main sub-headings of… [Read more]
Karen's centenary
A lover of parties, the biggest party possible thrown in her name would have been Karen's dream. But of course the pandemic has ruled out that option. Many people have approached us about whether a memorial encounter was being planned and sadly the answer is no, but maybe one day. But what we are doing is focusing on her website… [Read more]
Madeleine Ginsburg 1928–2020
In 1965, Roy Strong became joint secretary of the newly-formed Costume Society along with Madeleine. He recalled the tensions inherent in the Society at the start. Chairman Donald King’s ‘attitude to dress was what I would categorize as cool, and he was a solitary male presiding over a department staffed entirely by women whose relationships at best might be described… [Read more]
Madeleine Ginsburg 1928–2020
Our family were very sad to hear from Madeleine’s children, Mark and Lucy, of the death of their mother on 14 July. A small family funeral was held in Oxford. Madeleine and Karen met in 1957 when Madeleine joined the Victoria and Albert Museum where she remained until 1988, working first of all as a curator of Costume in the… [Read more]
Second anniversary of Karen's death
It’s two years since Karen died in her own room at our house in Walthamstow. I was there with Katrina and our cousin from Denmark, Tina, a highly qualified nurse who had come from Aarhus specially to help us through Karen’s final illness. Later that day our son Jacob came over and we read excerpts from the Tibetan Book of… [Read more]
Second anniversary of Karen's death
During the last months of Karen’s life, I applied for a job at Aarhus University. Several months after she died, I was awarded the job and more than one person made the joke that Karen must have had a hand in this from the beyond. I’m not sure what I believe about life after death, but if anyone could have… [Read more]