Tag Archives: gawthorpe

Textiles in Lockdown Commission – ebook and podcast

Posted in career, Projects by
Ruth Singer creates an archive of stories, a podcast and an ebook for Gawthorpe Textiles Collection about textile making during lockdown.

I’ve been busy sharing my finished Textiles in Lockdown commission all over the internet and I have forgotten to share it on my own blog! The podcast and ebook are now available for free online, all the links are here. It has been a really amazing project to create and develop. I have got to talk to textile makers about their work, which is probably one my favourite things to do. I loved making the podcast – interviewing people by Zoom was great! But then choosing just a couple of minutes from an hour long conversation was hard. I’m really inspired to think about making a podcast of my own one of these days, if I can work out how to find the time.

The ebook came out much larger than I intended – It was supposed to be about 30-40 pages to support the podcast but so much amazing material was shared by over 300 contributors that I needed to expand it to fit as much as possible. I know I had to leave some people’s words and images out and I feel bad about that but otherwise it would have been too big. All the contributions form a digital archive in the museum at Gawthorpe Textiles Collection to be used by future researchers.

It has been a real honour to hear and share such personal and powerful stories of how textiles have helped so many people through such a difficult year. I’ve had such warm feedback too from both contributors and textile organisations, I’m really proud of this project. If you catch this in time, I will be talking live on the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection Facebook page today (28th October) at 7pm. Please join me then if you can.

I’m so looking forward to this as I contributed in a small way to Ruth’s research that is so important to document.

Jo Hague

Meet the Maker May

Posted in Exhibitions, My work by

I’ve got several Meet the Maker days coming up this month alongside two different exhibitions. Next week 9-12th May is London Craft Week and I will be showing my Precious Objects collections with Design Nation in a studio in south London. I will be around all day Saturday 12th  May 11am – 6pm to talk to visitors. This event is completely free so please do pop in. Full details here.

Later this month I will be in residence in my Emotional Repair solo exhibition in National Trust Gawthorpe Hall, Lancashire. You can find me 12.30-4.30pm in the exhibition space on Saturdays 19th and 26th May. I will be working on adding more names to my Forget-me-not memorial sampler, to which so many have kindly contributed.

My Makers In Museums symposium is only a month away now, on 6th June. This takes place at Gawthorpe Hall alongside my exhibition and includes makers and curators talking about working with museums collections. Find out more here. 

 

The exhibition masterclass is now sold out, and my Festival of Quilts masterclass has just one space left but there are still a few places left on my one-hour quick and easy workshops. I will soon be announcing a couple more workshops in the autumn in the Midlands and in south Wales. And there’s still space in my West Dean weekend workshop at the end of August.

Emotional Repair Exhibition Masterclass

Posted in Exhibitions, Work With Me by

I’ve got a one-day workshop alongside my exhibition at Gawthorpe Hall Textile Collection on Friday 18th May. There are only a handful of tickets left!

Make a Precious Objects sampler using vintage fabrics and tiny treasures. All materials are provided but you might want to bring your own pieces to personalise your work.

You might also be interested in the Makers in Museums symposium for makers and curators in June.

 

 

Emotional Repair Exhibition

Posted in Exhibitions, Inspiration, Narrative Threads, Textile History by

I am currently working on a new exhibition at Gawthorpe Hall Textile Collection which is in an amazing National Trust building in Lancashire. The textiles there are a private collection assembled by Rachel Kay Shuttleworth (1886- 1967) who lived in the house and opened it up to share her collections and her knowledge.

 

I first visited the Gawthorpe in 2015 to look at their pincushion collection  as inspiration for Memorial Pincushions,  which celebrate the life of my beloved aunt. The first half of collection were included in my Narrative Threads exhibition in 2015  and some in Salisbury Textiles Open in 2016. Emotional Repair will be the first time all 46 (each one representing a year of her life) will be displayed together and alongside the original inspiration pieces from Miss Rachel’s own collection.

 

Late in 2016 I began talking to Jenny Waterson, curator of contemporary exhibitions and learning at Gawthorpe Textile Collection about showing this piece and others in a solo exhibition which is now confirmed for 28 March – 24 June 2018. Over the last year I have been developing new pieces of work and groups which will form this exhibition. I also returned to Gawthorpe in the autumn to look at more textiles, this time selecting pieces about mourning and remembrance, as well as unfinished pieces which I consider very poignant and full of potential stories of loss.

Emotional Repair covers a wide range of personal and emotive subjects focused around loss and remembering and includes work made over the last two years as well as brand new pieces currently in development.  Much of this work is deeply personal and touches on subjects which are hard to talk about so it may seem strange that I want to share them in this very public way, but we all know just how healing and cathartic it can be to make things when having a tough time. Textiles have such strong associations with domesticity, personal lives and family memory that they are the perfect means to express emotional stories. For me this works so well with the Gawthorpe Textile Collection, although Miss Rachel didn’t collect with this emotional response in mind, it is still one woman’s personal selection and it is displayed and preserved in her family home which brings an intimacy and personality beyond most museum collections.

The exhibition opens 28th March and continues until 24th June 2018.