In My Craft or Sullen Art

Emma Tann’s piece In My Craft or Sullen Art is beautifully invested in the source from which the title was derived. It is a piece of art – something to be viewed and studied – but it also as forlorn and unattended as a spider web. That the artist uses the doily as reference, and sometimes material, is particularly interesting in this context. Often overlooked, doilies have a strange doubleness, being practical and weirdly decorative, and though designs of doilies were often published in the early 20^th century, most of the designers were anonymous.

In my craft or sullen art

Exercised in the still night

When only the moon rages

And the lovers lie abed

With all their griefs in their arms,

I labour by singing light

Not for ambition or bread

Or the strut and trade of charms

On the ivory stages

But for the common wages

Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art.