Narrative in textile practice

I’ve been calling my work narrative textiles for over a decade now and really enjoy seeing other craft makers and artists exploring narratives and meanings in their work – and talking with them about it in my podcast, of course.

I look for the stories, the challenging subjects, the social justice, the personal and emotional research in creative practice all the time and am delighted when I find it. I recently visited the textile degree show at my local university, Loughborough, to see what the graduates have to say about why they are making what they make. Last year I was really pleased to find a good few projects about social issues and personal stories including some really innovative perspectives. This year there was less about social justice and community – I suppose we are another year further away from lockdown – but plenty about identity and environmental concerns.

I could say a lot about makers that talk about eco anxiety and environmental degradation but still produce synthetic dyed fabrics… but that’s not my focus today. I’m interested in celebrating the narrative textiles which had real impact.

The first theme that caught my eye was about community gardens. Both have created lovely pieces and I’m perhaps drawn to this theme as I’m starting a project with a community garden next month. Top images Lizzy Tanner. Images below Catherine Owen-Milsom.

There were a lot of collections looking at personal identity and family background which I really found interesting too. The work below is by Peace Rodliff.

I found Shannon Nel‘s work for a South African dementia village interesting, the text she presented in the show is more informative than the university web page.

Natural dye research and development pops up surprisingly rarely in the degree shows I’ve seen the last couple of years. This collection by Emily Butler was the only one I saw this time. I like the connection with specific places that she has explored.

The most thoughtful collection I noticed was by Kathryn Geary who explored disability and fashion and also created a beautiful collection of hand woven cloth.

And finally from an aesthetic and personal interest point of view I was pleased to see that fabric manipulation is still appearing in student work, as well as more quilting as that becomes more mainstream. I love the patchwork quilt cape SO MUCH. This collection by Sarah Charman is also intended to be adaptive too which is great to see. The smocked pieces below left are by Arwaa Turk.

If you are a maker wanting to build more narrative and meaning into your work, that’s what my Maker Membership is all about – more info below. And you might enjoy my podcast as well which explores the meaning behind what we make.