Cockpit Arts will be hosting their annual Festival of Making event from Friday June 19th – June 21st 2020. Running over three days, this free virtual celebration will feature 65 events run by over 80 of London’s leading makers. The festival is taking place across Zoom, Instagram and Facebook.

Featuring a range of workshops, panel discussions, live demos and studio tours, all led by some of London’s most exciting makers. Three woven textile artist and designers will be delivering the following exciting events across the weekend:

Friday June 21st  at 7pm Nadia-Anne Ricketts, an award winning woven textile designer, invites you to ‘Tune In’ to a live virtual immersive, meditation sound bath experience, where you’ll be taken on an inward exploratory journey to the field of infinite creative possibilities, by playing the sound vibrations of the gong woven into the frequencies of crystal bowls

Saturday, 20th June at 12pm. Vicky Cowin invites you to virtually visit her Deptford studio. You will see  Vicky’s loom and hear about her experience as one of several Cockpit makers supported by a Clothworkers’ Company Award.

Sunday, 21st June at 12pm. Weaver Kendall Clarke, working from home in a temporary studio, will show you how you can discover local colour from your doorstep in this introduction to natural dyes from summer plants, weeds and leaves. Continue reading →

Luxury womenswear brand Le Kilt and experimental design consultancy NORN host an exhibition and workshop at The Michael Hoppen Gallery to explore the reappropriation of traditional materials through craftsmanship and its relationship to punk subculture. The opening night event includes discussions with industry stalwarts as well as a Le Kilt pop-up retail space.

The exhibition features a series of installations that look at the relationship between punk and tradition in the context of craftsmanship. Le Kilt works with small-scale manufacturers to create their version of the modern woman’s uniform, whilst also adding new and unexpected design details such as hand-woven patches made from yarn spun in-house. Similarly, NORN places making and the haptic at the heart of its process; exploring the scope of making beyond conventional expectation of hand skills. Continue reading →

‘Primary Traveller’
New works by textile artist Hannah Waldron

‘Primary Traveller’ opens at the Select Festival on 21 April 2018

Hannah Waldron’s new work Primary Traveller is a nomadic modular structure that will house a new body of weavings specially created for this exhibition. Commissioned by and for the Select Festival.

‘Primary Traveller’ is an ambitious new work; a textile installation which will serve as a meeting place for discussion around the role of textiles and tapestry today.

Alongside are retrospective pieces that have previously toured internationally but have never been shown in England.

The space will be a meeting place for discussion on the work, its themes and the larger role of contemporary textile practises within both art and craft production and exhibition ecologies.
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Baths to Bobbins 10 years at Infirmary Street
From 29 March 2018

The Infirmary Street Baths were the first public baths in Edinburgh, built in 1885 by Robert Morham. Following the enactment in 1846 to Encourage the Establishment of Public Baths and Wash-houses, baths were built in Scotland from the 1850s to provide accessible washing facilities to improve public health. Until the 1870s women had to attend at different times from men. In the Ladies Baths space at Dovecot, we see an example of their needs being considered in the building design.

Dovecot was originally located at the site of the Corstorphine Castle, before moving in 2008 to Infirmary Street following a 2 year renovation and restoration project of the former Victorian baths building.

Celebrating 10 years of weaving in the Infirmary Street Baths, Dovecot will share some memories on the Tapestry Studio Viewing Balcony. The display titled Baths to Bobbins will explore memories of those who attended the Baths, the stories of the old Studio in Corstorphine, the saving of the Infirmary Street building and its conversion to a modern tapestry studio.

Screen for Another Focus | David Penny

25 May 2018 to 11 July 2018

As part of the 10-year anniversary of Dovecot’s new life at the old Infirmary Street Baths, Edinburgh, artist David Penny has created an exhibition of photography and video work interpreting the extraordinary craftsmanship of the weavers at Dovecot Tapestry Studio. Penny is interested in the materiality of objects and the aesthetics of technology as well as the actions of the body.

The project comprises images, which offer a focus on the forms, gestures and structures of the process of weaving and suggests parallels between the disciplines of photography and tapestry.

From footage and frames collected during a period of visits to Dovecot during 2017, this work sheds new light on the exceptional craftsmanship and making in Scotland. Continue reading →

Margo Selby : Pick by Pick. In partnership with Rochester Art Gallery

Dates: 15 December 2017 – 24 February 2018
This exhibition in partnership with Rochester Art Gallery features internationally-renowned textile artist and designer Margo Selby. They are showcasing her  hand-woven framed textiles, including new pieces made especially for this show, along with an archive of her design work which reveals the creative process.

The artworks use a technique called Lampas, a historic woven structure that was developed in the 17th century by Huguenot weavers to create decorative brocade fabrics. Margo is now using these weave structures in a new way to create  geometric framed works with a modernist feel.

Continue reading →