Double Weave: Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft

10 September 2023 |
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Double Weave: Bourne and Allen’s Modernist Textiles

This autumn, Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft will be marking ten years since their major redevelopment with an exhibition about the museum’s co-founder Hilary Bourne (1909 – 2004) and Barbara Allen (1903 – 1972), her partner in life and creative practice.

The pair ran an internationally successful textile studio, designing and making a variety of fabrics – tweed for Fortnum & Mason, furnishing fabric for Heal’s and scarves for Liberty. The turning point in their career came in 1951, when they won the competition to design and make textiles for the newly built Festival Hall. They went on to win commissions to make the costumes for the multi-Oscar winning 1959 film Ben-Hur and the interiors of the UK’s first jet planes.

In short, they were two of the most significant textile designers of the modernist period, yet they remain largely unknown – until now.

Double Weave will give space to their story. It will speak to the invisibility of women as leading modernist designers and how women’s intimacy informs creative pursuits.

High profile commissions undertaken by the pair will be on display, such as the costumes from Ben-Hur and curtains designed for the Ceremonial Box at the Royal Festival Hall. Visitors can see Bourne and Allen’s innovative use of natural dyes for hand woven textiles, as well as examples of their early adoption of the metallic yarn, Lurex.

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Grants: Theo Moorman Trust for Weavers

16 August 2023 |
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 Theo Moorman Trust

Applications for grants are invited from weavers living and working in the UK. Those who have recently completed higher education need to have two and a half years working experience before applying.

Grants are available to enable weavers to purchase equipment and materials; take a sabbatical to reassess the creative nature of their work; pursue a specific project; or develop in any other way approved by the Trustees.

The closing date for applications is 1 February 2024

Criteria and application forms are available here

Email application and good quality images to the Trust’s administrator: email here

With thanks to the Theo Moorman Trust and Jacy Wall for the  detail image and text.

Opportunity: Whitchurch Silk Mill | Trainee Weaver

12 August 2023 |
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Whitchurch Silk Mill is looking for a Trainee Weaver who is keen to learn about making silk on their Victorian machinery. As a working museum, they need someone with a practical hands-on approach with a genuine interest in heritage and weaving silk on tappet and dobby looms. During this one-year training post the trainee will learn how to wind, warp and weave and work in this working museum in the heart of the Hampshire countryside.

The Trainee Weaver will receive:
Full time, paid placement
£19,000 pa
Training in the operation of a Grade Two* listed Silk Mill, including winding, warping, weaving and the operation of a visitor attraction
Time to study
Work alongside the Weaver Tacklers, Mill Engineer and the Mill team
Learn about all aspects of silk production on our historic machinery
Develop skills, such as guiding and working in a visitor attraction

To apply, please send a CV and a covering email letter to Sue Tapliss (click on name for address) by Monday 4th September 2023.

Please do not send portfolios / photographs
Closing Date: 5.00pm Monday 4th September 2023

With thanks to Whitchurch Silk Mill for text and image

 

Anita Sarkezi | Weave Designer & Award Winner

24 July 2023 |
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Winner of the Weavers’ Company Award at New Designers

Anita Sarkezi was born to working-class Slovenian migrant parents in Sweden and returned to Slovenia during her school years. She has since then lived in several European countries, moving to Scotland in 2018.

Sarkezi’s textile design practice is motivated and informed by her Slavic cultural background. Her work is grounded in the interwoven histories of rural material culture and post-colonialism in Central and Eastern Europe, where she questions the traditional use of floral patterns as national symbols.

Her practice explores the relationship between organic and geometric shapes. Using the TC2 digital loom, Sarkezi constructs an imaginary space consisting of personal ornaments and motifs, as well as bold and gradient uses of colour. This serves as a visual metaphor for the flux of movement and migration and an outlet for her personal narrative as a migrant.

Sarkezi gathers visual information through wandering, catching and recording glimpses of nature in urban centres, then incorporating them into a new reality utilising digital and analogue ways of working.

Sarkezi’s approaches to drawing, colour and design exploration are intuitive and chaotic yet neatly edited at the end of the process. They’re all intertwined throughout the creative journey, and she feels colour exploration can end up in a drawing and design exploration can become a drawing. Form does not exist without colour. Each drawing, colour and design exploration has been collaged from diverse sources, aiming to create something that is ‘original’ and is an expression of her own identity and heritage.

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Weave Designer Profile: Fiona J Sperryn

21 June 2023 |
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‘Scapes Series’

Fresh from London Craft Week…

‘The Cornish landscape always evokes an emotional response in me. The sun dazzling off the water, the splash of the sea, the salty breeze on my face, the call of the gulls. In ‘Scapes’, I’m responding to these sensations, escaping into my imagination, conjuring a landscape’.

Fiona J Sperryn’s recent body of work has been developed on the TC2 digital jacquard loom from her original mark-making. The creative journey started with dirty charcoal drawing outdoors, using local materials and responding to the essence of landscapes visited and imagined.

This was followed by photography and scanning, a clean digital translation into the coded files recognised by the loom. Bobbins were wound with multiple strands of colour and the pieces were handwoven,  indigo dip-dyed and painted once off the loom.

The largest hanging in the ‘Scapes’ series measures 76 x 170cm and the smallest pieces 18 x 15cm within 28cm frames made of recycled ‘Polcore’. Continuing Fiona’s  work with colour blending on the loom in this series, strands of yarn of varying thicknesses are used together with subtle grading of tone and colour as each piece progresses.

The artworks are handwoven using mainly industrial ‘deadstock’ yarns, which include tencel, linen, bamboo, rayon, silk and cotton. It is important to Fiona to limit purchase of new yarn and the creation of waste.

The series was recently exhibited as part of London Craft Week with Future Icons Selects at the Oxo Tower Bargehouse alongside 70 artists and makers, including a number of tapestry and hand weavers.

Fiona hand weaves her artwork in a rural studio in Cornwall and is an active member of Design-Nation. She produces woven pieces to commission for artists and designers.

Fiona additionally offers expert tuition in digital jacquard weaving on the TC2 loom in her studio and is a lecturer at Falmouth University.

Contact: Fiona J Sperryn
IG: @fionajsperryn
FB: Fiona J Sperryn Art

With thanks to Fiona for the text and images

Exhibition: The Tangible Project for London Craft Week 2023

2 May 2023 |
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The Tangible Project

Venue: gallery@oxo Oxo Tower Wharf, Barge House St, London SE1 9PH
Dates: 10-14 May 2023
Instagram: @the_tangible_project

Three textile artists Amelie Crépy, Jacqueline James and Line Nilsen are creating The Tangible Project with five other very different artists and makers for London Craft Week, 10-14 May 2023.

This exhibition of over 30 new pieces of fine works celebrates the importance of touch through materials and promotes the inherent value of the handmade in art and design. In a world leaning toward digital encounters where so recently society was restricted from physical contact, touch has never mattered more. Hands exploring materials are the lifeblood of artists, a fluid relationship that ignites expression, understanding and a sense of connection.

Amélie Crépy endeavours to use only the purest of materials and as little as possible, often using just one colour. She seeks to replicate synthetic processes and digital techniques with hand-made pigments, inks, dyes and other mediums. Her love for the physicality of woven fabric, combined with her history as a textile print designer, has inspired the development of her current practice and the layered patterns she produces. For The Tangible Project she is focusing specifically on hand made oak gall ink created from crushed up galls found on oak trees which will be transferred onto pure Linen. Her work will be presented as both traditional framed artworks, as well as a large-scale piece hung from the wall. Instagram: @ameliecrepy

Jacqueline James’ current collection for The Tangible Project has been positively influenced by working with artist and textile designer Amélie Crépy during their collaboration to create ‘The Alchemy of Blue’ for Collect Open 2022. She will be combining natural, luxury yarns, including wool, linen, silk and banana fibre, to accomplish interesting surface texture with a sensory tactile quality.

Her latest work will feature custom dyed and handwoven textiles for both the floor and the wall. Several new designs are motivated by her fascination with sacred geometry. Jacqueline is further exploring the use of natural dyes and is excited to share her new colour palette. Instagram @Jacqueline_james_rugs

Line Nilsen who will be showing a range of handwoven artworks – contemporary crafted paintings with strong ties to traditional textile making. Continuing on from past work, she is exploring hand cut floats and textured surfaces in her recent body of work. Building on ikat dye techniques, Line has developed her own way of achieving a softer brush stroke effect in her work. Her pieces are hand dyed and painted in multiple stages to get the desired look. All her weaves are made on a 16-shaft mechanical dobby loom. Line is using her love of craft and materials to connect the viewer to her native Norway.

Instagram: @linenilsentextiles

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Exhibition: The Jacquard Project | Hannah Robson

6 March 2023 |
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In March 2023, Sunny Bank Mills will present a unique project of collaborative work led by weaver and artist Hannah Robson. Hannah has created a series of dynamic woven textiles using an industrial jacquard loom at Bradford College.

These striking fabrics have been developed in partnership with four local artists: a sculptor, a jeweller, a weaver and a mixed-media artist.

Hannah describes her motivation for the project:
‘I wanted to work with other artists to open up the process of weaving, which can be very technical and hard to access outside of an industrial setting. Weaving is a magical process that offers infinite possibilities in terms of design, colour and surface. It has been stimulating for me to see how each collaboration has unfolded and the results are distinct and surprising.’

In 2021, Hannah began working with an industrial loom that needed some attention at Bradford College. Through The Jacquard Project she has coaxed the machine back to life with the help of local weavers and loom tuners, who generously advised her, replaced parts and serviced the machine.

Some of these conversations have been captured in a fascinating film created by Karanjit Panesar, intercut with footage of the action of the loom as it weaves, revealing the atmosphere of making cloth and sharing skills.
Link to film: https://youtu.be/G-blWyqmiBw

The Jacquard Project celebrates the weaving heritage of West Yorkshire through the process of creative exchange and collaboration. These new textiles have a contemporary and conceptual edge, presented as large panels on wooden frames. The cloths carry evidence of the making process – the experimentation and exploration, colour and scale variations, yarn testing, and the glitches of the loom. Continue reading →

Opportunity: 6 Week Heritage Skills Student Placements | x3

6 March 2023 |
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Whitchurch Silk Mill are pleased to offer three, six week Heritage Skills Student Weaving Placements from 4th July to 12th August 2023 at their mill.

Whitchurch Silk Mill invite applications from those studying woven textiles or anyone with experience or interest in working with textiles to apply for a six-week placement.

On the Weaving Placement, you will:

  • Learn about the care and operation of their Victorian machinery, including  waterwheel, winding frames, creel and warping drum, and tappet and dobby looms.
  • Learn about the weaving capabilities. Depending on where the mill is in their programme and progress, you will have the opportunity, when required, to assist with specific tasks. For instance, threading up a loom, winding bobbins and pirns, warping and the art of hand twisting.
  • Learn about the brand, explore the archive and develop ideas for the development of Whitchurch Silk.
  • Discover how a working museum and visitor attraction operates, including meeting and guiding visitors, retail, catering, answering queries and devising activities for families and visitors.
  • Whitchurch Silk Mill are committed to ensuring that you have a great experience but must stress that while you receive training and instruction, this is, in part, a self-led learning experience. It is a work placement to give you an overview of working within a heritage weaving attraction.

How many placements are on offer?
There are a total of 3 placements on offer.
Placement Duration: 6 weeks, Tuesday to Saturday, 4th July to 12th August 2023.

Hours: 9.15 am to 5.15 pm 5 days per week, including Saturdays; some time will be spent working on the demonstration looms and interacting with visitors.

Experience to be gained

  • Gain great work experience to add to your CV and a good reference;
  • Learn about winding, warping and weaving on Victorian and early 20th-century looms, and the care that they take of their heritage machinery;
  • Apply the theory and practice learnt during their studies in a working environment;
  • Practice organisational, management and personal skills;
  • Discover more about the silk industry at one of only three silk mills in the country;
  • Experience working life in a busy working museum;
  • Gain valuable experience of dealing with visitors, customers and answering enquiries;

Bursary
£500 bursary per placement Continue reading →

Job: Account Manager | David Walters

22 February 2023 |
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David Walters design and weave exceptional furnishing fabrics for internationally renowned wholesale collections. Set in the heart of rural Suffolk, we combine over 300 years of jacquard weaving expertise with today’s technological advances in responsible manufacturing. They have an exciting opportunity to join our sales team as an Account Manager.

With a shared passion for creating beautiful textiles, an Account Manager at David Walters works in close collaboration with their customers to translate their ideas into exclusive fabrics.

The purpose of the role is to generate profitable, sustainable revenue by identifying and evaluating new business; setting a clear strategy to win that business and delivering to plan.

You will join a lively sales team and can combine your creativity and commercial understanding of the furnishing market to add real value to an already established brand and product. There is a strong focus on creativity and design as well as building sustainable relationships with customers. You will be working in a supportive environment with a real emphasis on shared values.

Who David Walters are looking for:
A dynamic, driven and market focused person that is self-motivated, highly organised that understands the value of luxury products.
A team player who enjoys contributing to improvements and innovation, with an affinity for colour and design.
Someone who enjoys developing new business and can plan strategically.
Someone with a proven track record of sales into luxury markets or has had experience of guiding clients through a creative product development process.

The role
A customer facing role, managing, maintaining, and developing relationships with key accounts and developing new business.
Delivering an agreed sales revenue target individually and as part of a team.
Identifying opportunities, mitigating risks and continuously evaluating and reforming the plan to deliver new business.
Developing woven fabrics that are in line with their capabilities and are appropriate for the furnishings market by setting, agreeing and managing customer expectations.
Managing customer design projects from concept to completion. Continue reading →

Bernat Klein: Design in Colour | Exhibition & Book

4 November 2022 |
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A new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland will explore the life and career of one of the 20th century’s leading forces in Modernist design, in the centenary year of his birth. Bernat Klein: Design in Colour celebrates the work of the Serbian-born textile designer Bernat Klein (1922 – 2014) who settled in the Scottish Borders after the Second World War.

Opening dates: 5 November 2022 to 23 April 2023
Admission: Free

The exhibition will examine his creative process and varied career; from supplying innovative couture fabrics to some of Europe’s top fashion houses to his strong influence on architecture and interior design in the UK and Scandinavia.

Opening on 5 November, it marks the centenary of Klein’s birth and is part of a series of cultural events developed by the Bernat Klein Foundation to celebrate the designer in 2022. It will chart his 60-year career as a textile designer, artist, educator, and colour consultant.

National Museums Scotland acquired his archive in 2010. This internationally significant collection of around 4,000 objects ranges from fabrics and garments to design development material.

On display in the exhibition will be highlights from the collection – including couture fashion, interior designs, textiles and original artworks – alongside newly acquired pieces which contextualise Klein’s work and recognise his legacy. Made possible with Art Fund support through the New Collecting Awards, these acquisitions include creations by fellow textile designers Ascher Ltd and Tibor Reich.

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