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Ruthin Craft Centre: As William Morris said…..

30 August 2014 Exhibitions / General / New weave developments / News
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Ruthin Craft Centre Image2014“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” William Morris

The Ruthin Craft Centre currently have an exhibition of contemporary craft objects, curated by Gregory Parsons, which have been designed and made by individuals whose creative practice the Gallery believe would engage and intrigue the influential Victorian.

Dates: 26 July – 21 September 2014

Exhibiting: Andrew Clancy / Jason Collingwood / David Colwell / Sebastian Cox / Jenny Crisp / David Frith / Kevin Gauld / Tanya Gomez / Joseph James Hartley / John Leach / Mourne Textiles / Gareth Neal / Catarina Riccabona / Michael Ruh / Daniel Smith / Philip Stevenson / Edward Teasdale / Richard La Trobe-Bateman / Derek Wilson.

Weaver Catarina Riccabona is among the exhibitors.  She designs and makes cushions, scarves and throws with each piece being hand-woven on a traditional loom and produced from start to finish in her studio in Southeast London.

Catarinas’ work is often inspired by tribal textiles, vintage grain sacks and linen towels as well as by memories of textiles from her childhood like mattress ticking or antique kilims. The look of her work is also determined by her very eco-friendly choice of yarns: linen, hemp, wool and alpaca (all undyed/unbleached and sourced from the UK and Europe).

Catarina_19.4.14 0942Coloured yarns are plant-dyed or second-hand (from donations) or simply the natural colour of the animal fleece. Her work can also be seen in The New Craftsmen outlet in Mayfair.

Catarina is also featured on The Crafted Studio  in a video. The Crafted Studio is a website in which the Independent craft researcher Grace Reff  travelled to Europe to meet and interview selected contemporary craft makers. She presents edited versions of the studio interviews in both printed and video formats on the site.

Other  weavers featured in the exhibition.
Mourne Textiles
Jason Collingwood
Jenny Chrisp

Images and Text from Ruthin Craft Centre website, Catarina Riccabona and Grace Reff

 

 

Profile: Beatrice Larkin

28 August 2014 Company Profile / Exhibitions / General / New weave developments / News
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Beatrice Larkin 2Beatrice Larkin is a London based woven textile designer. After finishing her MA in Textile Design at The Royal College of Art, Bea has been focussing on starting up her own textile design business.

She has most recently been part of The Craft Council’s Hot House scheme for emerging makers and a recipient of The Cockpit Arts/Clothworkers Foundation Award 2014.

This year she has exhibited work at The Heals Modern Craft Market and the touring Rising Stars exhibition as well spending six weeks teaching fashion and textiles at The International Institute of Fine Arts, India.

By using traditional Dobby weaving alongside the capabilities of the computerised Jacquard loom Beatrice manipulates her hand drawings, offsetting patterns and scales to meet unexpectedly and blurring lines to create fabrics with a distinctively soft and sympathetic take on geometric textile design. Continue reading →

Conference: Textiles, Communication & Politics

27 August 2014 Conferences / Events / General / News
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The Textile Society Logo

 

 

The Textile Society: 32nd Annual Conference

Dates: 7 Nov – 9 Nov 2014
Venue: Wellcome Centre
Euston Road,
London. NW1 2BE

The Textile Society conference, will take place over the weekend of Rememberance Sunday, in the centenary year of the First World War, and will explore the theme of textiles and politics.

The Saturday will feature a number of papers that explore different aspects of this fascinating topic. Study trips are being planned for the Friday morning and Sunday morning, and a conference dinner on Friday evening. The AGM will take place on Friday afternoon.

Details will be updated on their website as they become available. Notices of updates will be posted on twitter, so follow us to be sure to keep up to date.

image Textile SocietyDetails
The political nature of textiles can be evidenced through cloth past and present, from many different cultures. Through textiles we communicate
personal and social narratives and engender cultural identity. Textiles can be the conduit to bring people together in society, revealing shared values and concerns. Textiles can commemorate events and act as propaganda or social commentary, they can tell our stories and shape our ideas. The history of textiles is highly politicised. Textiles are part of a hierarchical value system where high and low art distinctions are drawn between fine art and craft, where textiles and gender are inextricably linked. Textiles have served the political purpose of institutions and individuals but also challenged them.

The 2014 Textile Society conference explores the theme of Textiles, Communication and Politics from historical and contemporary perspectives. Confirmed speakers include: Textile historians and conservators Jacquie Hyman and Vivian Lochhead, textile practitioners Paddy Hartley (Project Façade), Nigel Hurlstone, Claire Barber, Gavin Fry and Lynn Setterington, and fair trade and textile manufacturing specialists Seher Mirza and Labour Behind the Label.

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Permutations: Theo Wright

26 August 2014 Company Profile / Exhibitions / General / New weave developments / News
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permutations press comboCoventry-based weaver Theo Wright has been awarded funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England for a new project, Permutations.

This Grants for the Arts award will fund the development of new handwoven work for interior display, based on mathematical ideas in the area of combinatorics, looking specifically at the 24 permutations of four symbols.

Theo is best known for his handwoven scarves, some of which (such as the Symmetry scarf pictured) are also inspired by mathematics.
The finished textiles will be exhibited in June 2015 at the New Brewery Arts gallery in Cirencester alongside work by other makers from the Crafts Council Hothouse programme.

Combinatorics is an area of discrete mathematics that, loosely speaking, looks at the counting, ordering and combining of objects, and how sets of objects that meet certain criteria can be analysed and generated. It has applications in many areas, from calculating poker odds to bell ringing, from generating Pascal’s triangle to solving Rubik’s cube.

With a first degree in Computer Science followed by another in Textile Design 30 years later, it is perhaps unsurprising that Theo takes a distinctive systematic approach to his weaving.

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SIT Select : The Maker & the Retailer

26 August 2014 Conferences / Events / General / News
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SpeakersThe Maker and the Retailer

SIT Select will be staging a day of discussions and debate on Wednesday October 15th at Heal’s Quarter Cafe in Tottenham Court Road, London.

The Maker and the Retailer looks at the vital but thorny issue of combining craft with commerce. The first of the three sessions sees internationally acclaimed ceramicist Peter Ting (whose Flutter design has been used by Oasis Stores for one of their A/W 2014 fashion collections) who will be discussing the role commerce playing in fostering innovative craft and design with textile artist/designer Ptolemy Mann and Heal’s Creative Director Carmel Allen.
In the second, Gemma Waggett, RCA graduate and founder of e-store Nothing by Navy, will talk about getting started, her next career steps and reveal her exciting new work.
Finally, Guy Hills, co-founder of Dashing Tweeds, will tell the story of this exciting, innovative and distinctly idiosyncratic textile and menswear company.

Ticket price also includes lunch.
Times: 10.45am – 3pm
Venue: Heal’s Quarter Cafe, Tottenham Court Rd, London W1T 7LQ.
Tickets:  £32 and can be purchased via SIT


sit select logo

Jessica Leigh Calvert: BCFA FR One Award

25 July 2014 Competitions / Exhibitions / General / New weave developments / News
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Jessica Leigh Calvert_ Textile DesignJessica Leigh Calvert was awarded the British Contract Furnishing Association One Award at New Designers in June 2014. She creates handwoven and digital fabrics for interior spaces.

Whilst studying for her BA (Hons) Textile Design at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design she was fascinated by architectural landscapes and texture where she explores these ideas, combining high contrasts within her work. Jessica’s portfolio features woven fabrics that emulate a glamorous and tactile feel. A sensual colour palette, varied textures and exquisite craftsmanship inform her distinctive style, she also experiments with weaving techniques both modern and traditional. Jessica’s collection’s are described as subtle, timelessly elegant yet evoke a contemporary edge.

IMG_8618Her final collection for her degree was entitled ‘Textured Disparity’ which takes its name and inspiration from a journey she took across Southern China. Within the collection she wanted to capture the elegance and bold presence of modern buildings and constructions juxtaposing the exquisite rural landscape. The collection is versatile and modern yet elegant; the fabrics emulate a rustic feel whilst adding a flourish of subtle glamourand also have a distance appeal and yet are detailed on closer inspection. The fabrics are an assortment of contrasting textures and patterns in a sophisticated palette with flickers of vibrant colour to fashion a strong statement. The textures and colour palette work effortlessly within an interior space.

The Judges commented that ‘We felt that Jessica’s colour was equally matched within an exceptional portfolio. We were impressed by the depth of research and transition of her vision into a commercial product.’

Jessica will have a four week internship with the design studio at FR One in Antwerp as the award prize.

Thank you to Jessica Calvert and New Designers for the photos and text.

Call for papers: craft & design enquiry journal

25 July 2014 General / News / Publication
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Photo- Carla van Lunn‘Global Parallels: Production and Craft in Fashion and Industrial Design Industries’

The craft + design enquiry  Editorial Board welcomes Tiziana Ferrero-Regis, Rafael Gomez and Kathleen Horton, from Queensland University of Technology, as the Guest Editors of c+de#8 with the theme of ‘Global Parallels: Production and Craft in Fashion and Industrial Design Industries’.
Contributors to c+de#8 are invited to submit Expressions of Interest for either the Themed Section or the Open Section by following the Steps to Submitting a Paper outlined below.

Expressions of Interest close on 30 April 2015. For contributors invited to submit papers, the deadline for full papers is 30 June 2015. c+de#8 will be published in mid-2016.

Open Section — call for papers
The Guest Editors and the c+de Editorial Board invite submissions to the Open Section exploring any aspect of contemporary craft and design. Expressions of Interest for the Open Section are assessed by the c+de Editorial Board. All invited submissions to the Open Section are peer reviewed and selected for publication in line with c+de procedures for the Themed Section.

Contributors to the Open Section of c+de#8 should follow the Steps to Submitting a Paper outlined below. Expressions of Interest close on 30 April 2015. For contributors invited to submit papers, the deadline for full papers is 30 June 2015.

Themed Section — call for papers:
‘Global Parallels: Production and Craft in Fashion and Industrial Design Industries’

Guest Edited by Tiziana Ferrero-Regis , Rafael Gomez and Kathleen Horton of Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. They write:

This special issue of c+de aims to explore questions of design and craft across fashion and industrial design industries in the current global context. In light of de-localisation of manufacturing practices and increasingly complex supply chains, the alternating place and meaning of ‘skills and craft’ in the context of these vast global industries, and the transformational role and status of the designer in a market that is equally flooded with fast fashion and disposable ‘on trend’ lifestyle products, we seek to examine how the two worlds of fashion and industrial design intersect in terms of production, craft and design.

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Profile: Yangzi Wang

25 July 2014 General / New weave developments / News
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yangzi Wang process s-1Materiality of Fear

Yangzi Wang is a surface textile and new material designer. She completed an MA Textile/Material Futures course at  Central Saint Martins having previously graduated from BA (Hons) Textile Design, specializing in weave and print.  Now she  experiments in different ways to combine several materials together with different hand made skills, discovering new ways to produce textile related products, challenge the limits of both handmade and machine-made.

She investigated how can people materialize attraction of fear through materials?

Fear is a natural survival mechanism, an instinctive response to a potential danger which is important for the survival of all species. Yangzi is  fascinated by peoples interest in and attraction toward fearful situations. She investigates why some people more prone than others to inducing a sense of fear?

In this project she  tried to engineer a fear attraction, embedding fear within physical materials. Incorporating textures, forms and patterns commonly associated with phobias and instinctive human fear, she aims to explore the fine line between fear and attraction. Her work aims to encompass a sense of fear but also be highly seductive and alluring.Yangzi Wang1

Her designs are aimed at the celebrity or performer who wants to attract people’s attention. She has used fashion garments as a platform for gauging a reaction. Fashion for her has long since been used as a testing ground for new ideas and a stage for future fantasy.

Yangzi is setting up a studio  in Hangzhou, China, for the purpose of teaching, experimentation and technical exchange, as well as design project collaboration.
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Woven Textile Design: Jan Shenton

23 July 2014 General / News / Publication
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Jan Shenton coverWoven Textile Design written by Jan Shenton and published by Laurence King Academics , offers a comprehensive introduction to weaving for all those wishing to design and produce a wide range of fabrics from scratch.

Starting with the basics of woven textile design, the book looks at how to draw up and interpret records and notation, before explaining how different types of cloth are constructed. From the most basic of plain weaves, through twill weaves, textured weaves such as seersucker, crepe and corded cloths to more complicated designs created with extra threads woven in, a wide range of patterns are covered. Illustrated throughout with diagrams, weaving plans and beautiful examples from contemporary designers, the book also includes tips on using different yarns and colours to create stunning and unique designs.

Offering clear, practical advice, this book shows you how to interpret your initial concepts and develop your ideas on the loom. The book is highly recommended and a must have for textile students and professionals. Contents include

Jan Shenton is a weaver whose designs are bought by manufacturers and design houses in America, Canada, Europe and Japan. Her clients are high profile companies and include Louis Vuitton, Donna Karan, Polo Ralph Lauren, Etro, Weave Corporation, American Pacific, Cone Jacquards, Custo, Salvatore Ferragamo, Diane von Furstenberg, Etincelle Couture and Lululemon. She is a lecturer in woven textiles at Loughborough University. Continue reading →

Amy Gair: The Worshipful Company of Weavers Associate Prize

22 July 2014 Competitions / Exhibitions / General / New weave developments / News
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Amy Gair Woven Samples 2The Worshipful Company of Weavers Associate Prize was won by Amy Gair at New Designers exhibition in London.

Amy is from Shetland and studied a BA in Contemporary Textiles at the University of Highlands and Islands, before she progressed onto Heriot Watt’s School of Textiles and Design to complete her honours year in a BA(Hons) in Design for textiles, specialising in weave.

She graduated from Heriot Watt in June 2014 with First Class honours and won The Incorporation of Bonnetmakers and Dyers of Glasgow Prize at  her graduation for her  ‘Industrial North’ collection of dobby and jacquard woven fabrics.
Amy Gair_ New Designers copyright

Her ‘Industrial North’ Collection was focussed on Shetland and its northern identity as a remote Scottish Island. As the island is located half way between the Scottish Mainland and Norway, there are some Scandinavian influences  which ideas she  have tried to incorporate too. The collection brings together Shetland, Scandinavian design influences and traditional Scottish woven fabric qualities such as twills, herringbones and checks. She used a combination of wool, merino, lambs wool and also some Shetland wool too.

She  used her own photography and mixed media artworks to create ideas for translating into weaving which are a crucial part to her design process.Amy Gair - Sketchbook 2Amy is about to embark on a Masters in Textiles and Fashion at Glasgow School of Art and aims to work  in the UK textiles industry after graduating from this course. She eventually would like to set up her own textile label back in Shetland.

 

 

 

 

 

Website: www.brownsroadtextiles.com

Twitter: @brownsroad
Blog: amygair.wordpress.com

The Worshipful Company of Weavers

 

Photography of award event: copyright New Designers 2014.
Other photography and text: Amy Gair 2014
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