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Research: Mono-Material Library x Schoenkwarteir | Sophia Fenlon + Stephanie Rolph

6 October 2024 Awards / Company Profile / Events / Exhibitions / General / New weave developments / News / Reseach / Weave Designer Profile
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Mono-Material Library: Designers Sophia Fenlon + Stephanie Rolph

What is the Mono-Material Library?
The Mono-material Library aims to showcase how mono-material design, created with a single fibre such as wool, can achieve diverse textures, forms, and functions through engineered use of woven structures.

This innovative approach shifts focus from selecting fibres based on their inherent properties, to engineering, through woven structure, functionality and transforming a fabrics mechanical properties.

As an emergent area of design, mono-material designing responds directly to the climate emergency by prioritising material or product recyclability or biodegradability at the end of life. This project has evolved from the Designers shared interest in the role textiles can play in achieving Net Zero.

Mono-Material Library x Schoenenkwartier
This collaboration challenged conventional approaches to woven design and shoemaking through an interdisciplinary partnership. This process driven project explores how jacquard and dobby weaving can be used to create mono-material footwear uppers. Focusing on the ability to engineer multi-layer woven textiles on- loom and then transform them through finishing techniques to create functional footwear components. Through an in depth exploration of woven structure, the project investigates how to strategically engineer areas of flexibility, rigidity, stretch and cushioning where required within the uppers.

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Publication | Woven Optical Illusions : Pattern and Designs from Four to 24 Shafts

18 May 2024 General / New weave developments / Publication / Reseach
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Woven Optical Illusions: Patten and Design from Four to 24 Shafts is authored by Stacey Harvey-Brown and Katharina Kronig. Published by The Crowood Press Ltd. ISBN no: 0719843391

Optical illusions are very much part of our time but have been around for hundreds of years. They never cease to fascinate.

Woven Optical Illusions is a newly published book which explores how these effects can translate into woven cloth, the scientific background behind illusory effects and how they can inspire the handloom weaver to develop their creativity.

There are five different chapters, each looking into one particular group of effects and taking the reader from an image to the finished sample. Examples are given to show how to develop the initial inspiration further along with analysis of the visual processes and how to observe them to create the illusion in weaving.

From four shafts through to 24 shafts, the book offers possibilities for weavers at any level of expertise. Particular attention is paid to weavers with eight-shaft looms. The principles behind the development of each sample are explained and all samples are accompanied by explanatory drafts. Plain weave, a large array of tied weaves, colour-and-weave structures, doubleweave and its variations are all used and explained throughout the chapters. A final chapter with technical weaving notes explains these weave structures in more detail.

Within the publication there is a gallery with complex weavings by experienced weavers, mostly with multi-shaft looms, shows the unlimited potential for woven optical illusions.

With many thanks to Stacey Harvey-Brown & Katerina Kronig for the text and image

Grants: Theo Moorman Trust for Weavers

16 August 2023 Awards / General / Reseach
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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 Company Profile / General / Jobs / News / Reseach
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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

 

Weave Designer Profile: Fiona J Sperryn

21 June 2023 Artist Profile / Company Profile / Exhibitions / General / New weave developments / Reseach / Weave Designer Profile / Workshops
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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

Theo Rooden: Visual Artist

27 October 2022 Artist Profile / Company Profile / General / New weave developments / News / Reseach / Weave Designer Profile
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Visual artist Theo Rooden (The Netherlands, 1969) loves to take advantage of weaving techniques to build his geometric abstract compositions. In many of his works he challenges the flatness of the fabric with optical effects.

With his self-imposed rules he searches for interesting rhythms and patterns. Possibilities and constraints of the loom and yarn are a source of inspiration. Rooden prefers to make series of works to explore in detail the consequences of algorithms and its variants. When translating a design into a woven fabric, the self-imposed rules need to be bent opening a space for unexpected and interesting results. Intuition regarding colours and composition shape final choices.

Being trained as an Industrial Design Engineer, his path led him more and more to being autonomous to create beautiful things, first in graphic design, later as a visual artist. With a lifelong fascination for patterns he started weaving in 2018. As a fast learner he was able to balance his already developed personal style with the principles of weaving. In 2021 he acquired a damask handloom.

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Weaving Eucalyptus Project: Liz Williamson

10 August 2022 Artist Profile / Events / Exhibitions / General / New weave developments / News / Reseach
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Since November 2019, Liz Williamson has invited friends and colleagues in Australia, India and elsewhere to be part of her Weaving Eucalyptus Project, requesting them to colour two metres of silk fabric with locally sourced Eucalyptus leaves.

Liz states “I developed this project in response to an invitation from Dr Kevin Murray to participate in ‘Make the world again: textile works from Australia’ to be shown in Vancouver, Canada in May 2020 as part of their Crafted Vancouver month. The brief called for exhibitors to rethink how they would like the world to be, to develop different strategies for making and how textiles have influenced our world. My proposal involved inviting artists in Australia and India to collaborate with me by colouring cloth with a local eucalyptus which I then wove into panel approximately 17cm wide x 120cm long. The installation titled Cultural Shadows interwove local colour, cultural connections and weaving traditions and represents a community of practice linked by an interest in the natural world, natural materials / processes, and the environment.

This work followed on from recent work which has referenced the rag rug tradition, weaving plant dyed silk fabric in strips as the weft and the Australian ‘making do’ and ‘wagga’ quilt tradition in using readily available, locally sourced colour; unfortunately, not repurposed fabric”

‘Make the world again: textile works from Australia’ showing in Vancouver was cancelled due to the pandemic but the exhibition was launched online on 21 May 2020 and at the end of 2020 was shown at the Australian Tapestry Workshop in Melbourne until early March 2021. The Cultural Shadows installation included eleven panels from the Weaving Eucalypts Project all woven from silks dyed by Australian and Indian artists and although not comprehensive of the range of colours hidden in Eucalyptus leaves, the colours in these panels reflected each place, while the process and the finished work will represent friendship, community, exchange and expertise. All artists and the species used are acknowledged in the exhibition documentation. Click here for more information
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The Experimental Weave Lab Launch: April – September 2022

27 March 2022 Events / Exhibitions / General / New weave developments / News / Reseach / Workshops
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The Experimental Weave Lab, (TEWL), is the City of London’s first contemporary, innovative, experimental textile weaving season. Curated by Philippa Brock and Elizabeth Ashdown, this six-month season supports an exciting programme of short and long-term weaving residencies, talks, workshops and outreach work culminating in a final exhibition throughout most of September 2022. The season aims to explore the experimental, sustainable and interstitial spaces that weavers work within throughout UK craft, research, art, design and industry. All events will be announced on a monthly basis, from the start of April 2022 on The Experimental Weave Lab website and on instagram @the_experimental_weave_lab

Each resident will be tasked with pushing the boundaries of their practice within their time at the Lab, with the residencies being supported to enable all residents to be able to spend a prolonged period of time researching and developing both new and established approaches to their craft. There are experimental textile workshops being led by Residents of TEWL, Amber Roper and Sarah Ward at The Brady Centre with the ‘A’ Team in April 2022. There will also be a living archive lodged on the website detailing the processes and outcomes at the end of the season.

The Experimental Weave Lab aims to connect with London based events throughout the programme, including London Craft Week, The Crafts Council Make, Make! Craft! Live! and London Design Festival.

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Profile: Alice Fox

16 February 2022 Artist Profile / Company Profile / Events / Exhibitions / General / New weave developments / News / Reseach / Weave Designer Profile
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Sustainability is at the heart of Alice Fox’s practice. The desire to take an ethical approach has driven a shift from using conventional art and textile materials into exploring found objects, gathered materials and natural processes. Alice gathers the materials that are available to her, testing, sampling and exploring them to find possibilities using her textiles-based skill set and techniques borrowed from soft basketry.

Establishing an allotment garden as a source of materials for her work has provided a space where Alice can experiment, exploring the potential of what grows there, planted and wild, as well as other materials found on the plot. This allowed Alice to really focus on material sourcing and consider self-sufficiency in terms of art materials.

Materials are produced, gathered and processed seasonally and are hard-won: There may only be a small batch of each type of usable material each year. As a result, each bundle of dandelion stems, sweetcorn fibre or hand processed flax is enormously precious by its scarcity and the meaning attached to it through its sourcing and hand-processing. Continue reading →

Profile: Michaela Johnston | Circular Willow

15 February 2022 Artist Profile / General / New weave developments / Reseach / Weave Designer Profile
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Michaela Johnston works and studies between her rural home in West Wales and London. Her approach to woven textiles is very process based, looking at each element of production and exploring the routes that can be taken using sustainable practices and circular materials. She designs for purpose and thoroughly considers how her textiles will fit into society and how it works alongside the values she has developed as a designer throughout her Textile Design BA.

Michaela is excited by the possibilities of designing with the future in mind and while doing so exploring the processes of the past. Her journey now continues onto the Material Futures MA at Central Saint Martins, UAL, where she hopes to explore further with a broader spectrum of design approaches and the integration of science and technology.

Her graduate project, Circular Willow incorporates all the values she has built up through her BA focusing on designing for purpose, using local production methods and materials. Circular Willow began with the waste bark from a local basket weaver during lockdown that she took through a variety of experimental processes to become a useable yarn, able to hold colour from food waste and plants.

From this she designed multifunctional pocket aprons using layered weaving techniques which incorporated her willow yarn to enable craftspeople to be more mobile while working. The pockets are made from bast fibres, linen, hemp and willow yarn, and dyed with onion, iron, nettle, logwood, and turmeric.

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