So, happy ninth birthday to the Profanity Embroidery Group — or, at least, this is the date of their initial meeting given on their website.
The inspiration for the group had come from this Rina Piccolo cartoon:
“At this point”, their site says, “members consisted mostly of novice embroiderers, but experienced swearers. Fortunately the balance was soon redressed by the arrival of some novice swearers who were experienced embroiderers, and eager to improve their vocabulary.”
Since then, they have held several exhibitions and brought out a book, and their work has expanded to include soft sculpture.
Kathy Burke said they were “like a Punk version of the WI”, and in her 2019 documentary All Woman added:
Sweary women are right up my fucking street.
If the organisation were to have a celebrity patron, then, she might be their natural choice, except…
When Judi Dench appeared in David Hare’s Amy’s View in 1997, she sewed something beautiful for the playwright:
In 2005, Matthew Macfadyen told an interviewer:
She makes these like needlework embroideries on set in the tedium of filming … beautifully, intricate, ornate … but they are all: ‘You Are a Cunt’
…with Keira Knightley adding:
you think: ‘Oh, that’s so nice! It’s Judi Dench. It’s so quaint; she’s embroidering a cushion’, and you go: ‘What are you embroidering?’ And (it says): ‘Fuck!’ Apparently she’s got hundreds of them just covered in swear words.
Despite extensive searches, I’ve never been able to find a picture of one of Dench’s masterworks, so for now we must content ourselves with these:
…these:
…these:
…and these:
