Yesterday I went to a bleak and wet Rochester to see exhibition of work by weaver and textile designer
Margo Selby at
Rochester Art Gallery and
Huguenot Museum. She was running a 'colour and stripe' workshop in the morning which looked fun and giving a talk in the afternoon which I went to with some friends.
The gallery was mainly devoted to her more recent hand woven artworks created using the
'Lampas' technique initially developed and used by French Huguenot weavers for decorative brocade fabrics. There were also cases showing her design work and samples.
Upstairs in the Huguenot Museum her commercial fabrics produced in industrial mills ( rugs, furnishing and accessories etc ) were displayed.
Her talk was interesting, outlining her development as a woven textile designer from studying at Chelsea and RCA to the issues of scaling up from hand woven samples when you only want 20m as opposed to minimum runs of 200m and learning how to market her products . Since moving to Whitstable in 2012, she's been focusing on her art practice, creating hand-woven works. There were some questions asked about balancing art and commercial practice , she acknowledged that she was lucky to be able to do both ( while part wishing she hadn't used her name as the brand for her commercial work )
I couldn't resist buying this scarf in her trademark 3 dimensional fabric in silk and lycra - I just loved the colours and the 'patchwork' design . I'm a bit poorly at the moment (bland diet, no coffee, wine or chocolate!) and didn't make it to my painting class on Thursday so it cheered me up.
1 comment:
I've long admired, not just her work but her approach in that she seems to manage both commercial and personal development.
Hope you're feeling better soon, been on the bland diet - not fun, you have my sympathy.
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