Great British Sewing Bee is back on 15th July

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

I'm looking forward to it.

He was presented as an artist on artist week - he is an artist. What is the big deal?

next year they should get inspo from Eric Gill.

There are plenty of posts on here that you can read to help you understand why some people think it's a 'big deal'.

We’ve already covered this ground. Gill was an incestuous rapist who committed criminal acts. You don’t like the way Grayson Perry dresses. See the difference?

Its not just wearing a dress is it

When Dave from Asda turns up at the local children's charity to show support and drop off some food parcels donated by him and he's wearing fetish gear or an erect dildo (which is not the same as a codpiece) because, you know, he is a bit of a character that Dave, bit of a geezer, what a joker he is, what is he like eh!!

What then

What when he's wearing his dress and getting a sexual thrill out of it, peering over the charity boxes, standing in front of the big posters of children in need of support from the charity.

Ok is it?

I think those people are silly and narrow minded. Honestly I find it depressing that discussion of a lovely sewing programme has been taken over by such ridiculous disapproval of a genuinely interesting and talented artist.

No, I said that. He isn't a pervert just because you might not agree with his ideas.

It's narrow-minded is it to voice objections to someone playing out their sexual fetish (based in humiliation and the iconology of small girls) in public?
Right you are.

Yes, wrong person, apologies for that.
I couldn't care less about his 'ideas' (whatever that means) or what he does consensually in private, just as I expect no one to judge what I might do in private with other consenting adults.
But I absolutely stand by the right to call out a person playing out a sexual fetish in public with other people there who may not know they're being or want to be involved in it.
It's a bit worrying if people can't see a distinction between those two.

We are all playing out our sexual fetishes in public if you want to be so literal about it. If you ever hold hands with your DH you are flagrantly displaying your heterosexuality. I think you may be happier in a more repressive country where anything that anyone could ever find sexual is vigorously repressed. But we live in the UK in 2025 and artists can be kinky and risque. You don't have to watch, you know.

I'd like to know your sources.

You are being ridiculous.

try to patronise harder.

Plenty of people didn't know about the dark side of Grayson "look at me me me me" Perry. And now they do.

(incidentally, his comment about "great art" makes me laugh. What he does is crafts, not art, IMO.)

I was thinking about the transformation challenge after seeing a YouTuber try to pretty up and sell a load of clothes that charity shops dumped because they couldn't sell them. If that kind of thing is where the transformation gubbins comes from, I'm ok with it. Otherwise. Meh.

He's an artist, not a craftsperson. You have clearly never seen any of his paintings or pottery.

For what? For his alter ego Claire/him wearing the dresses he does as part of a sexual fetish? He writes about it in his autobiography. And talks about it on Kirsty Young's podcast Young Again.

Yes. I have.

If you know so much about art you will know that female ceramic artists are constantly relegated to "crafts". I am returning the favour. Some of his pieces are interesting. Most are - zzzz. That is fine because art is a spectrum, and in the eye of the beholder and is why i am perfectly comfortable saying what he does is "crafts"

I am done now. People who didn't know, know now, and that was the point.

It is hard not to patronise someone who can't see the distinction between a rapist and someone whose dress sense you object to. Yadda yadda, participating in his fetish - I think most people can cope with an 'out there' artist without feeling personally violated. We didn't delve into the personal lives of the designers on designer week to see if they had a 'dark side' whatever that is (although predictably someone did bleat about a male model wearing a dress). If you don't consider Perry's work to be art, that is your prerogative - all art is subjective. But that doesn't mean we all have to consider him persona non grata.

Agreed.

For the millionth time, it's not about objecting to his dress sense. He is on record, more than once, explaining exactly why he has this alter ego of a little girl and that one of the reasons he wears big frilly dresses is to hide his erection. And that it is about people being non-consensually involved (listen to Young Again if you still don't believe/can't understand that point). And then do let us know how this is so easily dismissed with 'Yadda yadda'.

We don't need to 'delve into' his personal life because, as per all the points above and made ad infinitum on here, he makes this aspect of his personal – sexual – life public.

For the millionth time - I don't care, it isn't a problem to me if Grayson Perry gets a stiffy in a dress, I like his art and how he uses his persona as part of that (which is not uncommon for artists to do, I referenced Dali & Kahlo up thread). I think getting worked up about him being used as a reference on a sewing show is ridiculous.

Well, at least you've actually said that, rather than trying yet again to dismiss it by passing it off as people not liking his dress sense.

Im not sure Frida Kahlo was wafting round exhibiting her paraphilias.

and for the last time: I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.
FGS stop making yourself out to be the ultimate arbiter of where we are allowed to draw our personal line of "nope"

But go you. You are obviously so cool and edgy because you think a man in a dress designed to hide his paraphilic erection, wore a visible dildo to an event for a children's cancer charity. Go you.

Khalo didn't exhibit paraphilias, afaik. But would also of course, have been another artist they could have referenced for the pattern challenge, what with all the gathering and so on in Mexican national dress.

You can draw your personal line anywhere you like. But saying he shouldn’t be referenced on the show is trying to draw the line for other people- which I strongly object to.

Stop arguing. This thread is to discuss a sewing show. If you want to argue about Grayson Perry then please go and start your own thread to do so.