Textiles Today? Three Generations of Artist Weavers
Fen Ditton Gallery
The Fen Ditton Gallery opens up the world of Textiles in an extraordinary show ready to last the entire month of October. If textiles has a ‘what we did at school’ craft based association think again – and then once more
In a wonderfully stimulating talk creator and textiles supremo, Eleanor Prtichard reveals the scope of textile making in this country and beyond. With our hundreds year tradition of brilliant work with wool and cotton, skills that powered the Industrial Revolution in the North of England she plunged us into the sophisticated ambience of that work today.
Check out the wall hangings featured here. As inspirational as any paintings they hang boldly . And provide colour and comfort as they have for centuries. Elegant as ever the Gallery has them presented in a warm familiar celebration of the art and skill they have represented down the years.
In this year of the Bayeux tapestry and discussion of parallel fascinating handiwork , it is easy to sidline the real actors in this drama of energy and originality mechanical looms – I include pictures by superb photographer and gallery owner Hannah Mumby. We do know taxtiles emerge from a fine mechanical process – but how many of us have the faintest idea of what that looks like. Eleanor herself is astonishe d how fast the finished cloth emerges, it takes minutes, But the real slog is in the design, the layout the infinitely intricate work beforehand.
It was British wool in demand centuries ago, and demand led to the art turning the country’s fortunes upside down – in a good way.
The Fen Ditton Blanket brings a fun feature to life – designed for fans of the lovely Gallery and the nature around it, it is Eleanor’s work- a tribute to the brave factories where these beautifully wrought works of art are brilliantly engendered – the doughty survivors of an industry and craft that made Britin what it is today. In a good and artistic way.
A lifetime enthusiast for textiles myself, I salute the Gallery’s brilliant show . Not to be missed.
