Margo Selby : Pick by Pick at Rochester Art Gallery and Huguenot Museum

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.