CREWEL INTENTIONS

Danielle Clough
Aug 21, 2025
3 min read

Updated: Nov 10, 2025

A SOLO EXHIBITION OF EMBROIDERY; RELOVING AND RECOLOURING VINTAGE PLAYBOYS.

Crewel Intentions is a collection of textured and saturated portraits referenced from editorials and advertisements found in Playboy magazines from the 1970s.

Ever since I stumbled upon one in an antique warehouse at 19 years old in Brisbane, I have been collecting old Playboy magazines. I've always loved flipping through them, finding interesting artefacts in the articles. I'm a regular Indiana Jones of fashion, culture and nudity. It was only in 2018 (I was born in '88 - you do the math) that my curiosity for the publication found its way into my embroidery. I made a small series of 3 works that went into a group show at Paradigm Gallery. When Paradigm and I decided to put together another collection for a solo show this year, it felt fitting to crack open the door again, diving back into the pages of Playboy's past.

Instead of imposing a predetermined meaning on the show, I wanted to explore the magazines I have been collecting for nearly two decades. I hoped the meaning, if any, would emerge in the process of making. This is one of the many blessings of fibre art for me; it straddles the space between craft and art. It allows 'making' to be enough. While flipping pages, reading and reimagining these images, and through the act of embroidery — a calm and meditative indulgence in the present — I was able to figure out the Crewel Intentions.

These magazines are a time warp. Old images on textured paper taken on antiquated film cameras, adverts of outdated products, and photos of people who might now be frequenting knitting circles fill the pages. I felt the passing of time, the shifts of beauty standards. I ruminated on my own ageing. Through all this, what truly stood out was that no matter how different things look, we are still the same. You can read many debates, printed on time-stained paper, that we are having today. We sit with the same worries, hopes, fears and desires. We spin a yarn about the past — and more consequentially, about the present and each other. These portraits are here to incite nostalgia and invite a new perspective on memory. To celebrate the mediums by looking at them with technicoloured tinted glasses, and to remember that newness is not the only metric of value. The intention is to create a stirring of colour-soaked joy while thinking about a legacy of time, if only for a moment.

The artist merges new materials and saturated hues with imagery and styles we often associate with an earlier age, both romanticizing and acknowledging outmoded attitudes, styles, and technologies. “Clough’s appreciation of her material and her subject allows her to start a conversation on graceful aging,” the gallery says, “celebrating outdated processes of making and the aesthetics that stand the test of time.” - Kate Mothes for Colossal

As I write this, the opening night feels like yesterday. I got to share the special evening with three other incredible women. The second floor of the gallery hosted Han Cao and I again (we shared solos in 2023, too) while Dina Brodsky and Lorraine Loots had a huge show of miniatures called Little Italy.

The four of us popped champagne in our part-time home in Old City, a space I shared with my long-time friend from South Africa, Lorraine. We walked together through the humid streets of Philly to the gallery, and each of us shared our stories, our solos, and our success. Things really are better together.

As we ended the night at Victor's Cafe, a restaurant where the waiters would stop working and sing opera, I realised that this is the life I would have chosen.