Indholdsfortegnelse for March - April 2025 i Embroidery

■ I’VE BEEN ON A HISTORICAL ODYSSEY for this issue, delving back through time and place to a town‘Where England Began’. This was the evocative tagline of the 2015 competition for art students seeking designs for panels depicting the seven Anglo-Saxon kings that legend has it were crowned near All Saints Church, Kingston upon Thames. The church’s Saxon kings team opted for embroidered panels, following in the long tradition of church textiles. They decided to inject a 21st century element, too, so Dr Jacky Puzey, who works with state-of-the-art digital machine embroidery, stepped into the role of redesigning, developing and delivering the embroidered artworks. She didn’t know then that it would be an eight-year labour of love. You can read about Jacky’s journey on p. 52. All Saints Church has…

■ STITCHED: CONTEMPORARY EMBROIDERY, an exhibition at Bedford Gallery in California, USA, serves as a deep-dive into present-day embroidery practices, encouraging visitors to experience embroidery as more than decorative craftwork by revealing its historical depth and relevance. The exhibition invites art lovers, craft enthusiasts and the curious to discover the artistic potential of this ancient technique through the eyes of today’s most gifted stitching artists. Exploring the evolution of embroidery and the artists who are redefining the medium, the exhibition showcases works by 18 national and international artists bringing new perspectives to the medium, which has historically been labelled ‘women’s work’ and commonly dismissed in fine art conversations. By merging traditional embroidery techniques with innovative approaches and socio-political themes, the artists in this exhibition create powerful narratives that challenge these…

‘IT’S BEEN A BUSY, inspiring couple of months,’ says Rhian Harris. Following Dr Susan Kay-Williams’ retirement after 17 years with the charity, Harris stepped into her role as the Royal School of Needlework’s chief executive last autumn. She talks of feeling ‘very privileged to be taking the reins’ and ‘leading the RSN on its next journey.’ Since studying art history at undergraduate level and taking an MA in museum and gallery management, Harris’s career appears almost meteoric. High-spots include CEO of Lakeland Arts; director of theV&A’s Museum of Childhood [now theYoungV&A]; and the founding director of the Foundling Museum. To have successfully steered these non-state funded organisations through‘severe storms’ like the Covid pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, reveals a character replete with resilience, creativity and commercial acumen. Evidently committed to…

BOUND: AN EMBROIDERER’S STORY 16–21 January, Downstairs at the Department Store, 248 Ferndale Road, London SW9 8FR ■ BOUND: AN EMBROIDERER’S STORY ran from 16–21 January at Downstairs at the Department Store in London. The carefully curated exhibition featured work by 15 emerging contemporary textile artists, including Lucy J Newman, Rebecca Miriam Offredi and Alex Standring. The exhibition channelled the entrepreneurial spirit of the Young British Artists (YBAs) of the early 1990s, who, led by Damien Hirst, rented spaces and organised their own exhibitions to challenge the art establishment. Nearly 30 years later, the Bound Collective brings that same energy and originality to textile arts, showcasing a range of talent and approaches to embroidery. Among the standout works was Livia Papiernik’s large-scale 2.5m x 2m embroidered tapestry, The Love You Left…

■ Lynn Setterington uses embroidery methods and textile history to explore issues in society, ranging from belonging to sustainability, and from place to well-being and personal identity. She works with communities across the globe, mostly marginalised, who lack voice and visibility. Setterington’s new book, Connecting Threads: Tactile social history, brings together 12 textile projects from 1981 to 2024. Each one acts as a social history document, providing tactile evidence of often untold stories of people on the margins. The resulting work is both personal and political, ranging from tiny colourful hand embroidered fragments recording everyday life in South London and Yorkshire, to monumental, site-specific banners made with construction workers in the north of England. The installation, Safety Net, for instance, raises awareness ​of poor mental health in the construction industry,…

■ WHEN TEXTILE ARTIST Janet Haigh visited Hidcote Manor in the mid-1970s, it changed her work forever. ‘Hidcote lit the fuse. It was one of the first “National Trust great gardens” I visited.’ Haigh responded creatively to Hidcote’s stunning design, which marked the end of the great landscape garden era with the introduction of the concept of making a journey through external spaces into one encompassing moving through ‘different rooms’. It is perhaps then with a sense of homecoming, that Haigh launches a major solo exhibition at Hidcote. Comprising over 50 pieces from over 50 years of her work, it centres on her passion for all things floriferous. The exhibition revolves around The Flora, an epic work of nine hand-embroidered panels depicting Haigh’s personal overview of the history of flowers,…

A thoughtful and dedicated approach is common to second career makers–it takes courage and preparation to walk away from a successful job, to pivot to a more precarious way of living. Intense thoughtfulness is central to Alison Leauanae’s character: she is a stitch artist with a very considered approach, evident in her surprising and dynamic embroideries, which are full of unexpected and energetic colour and texture combinations and exquisitely planned-out geometric forms. These forms have complex origins in nature, in cultural signifiers, and in some very everyday objects from the past; all are reshaped to a finely honed practice that plays simultaneously with optical illusion and the human experience. Alison Leauanae lives and works in Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city. Like many fellow citizens in this country of immigrants, Alison…

A bird in the hand Gardens and wildlife offer endless fascination for embroiderer Sue Bibby, who is exhibiting at Farfield Mill, Cumbria, from April. Her process starts with drawing from life, and she rarely ventures out without first tucking her sketchbook under her arm. Once her ideas are assembled, she uses spontaneous but precise free-machine embroidery on her ‘trusty Bernina’ to fashion texture, depth and relief, followed by handstitch to add fine detail. Sue reclaims old needlework techniques and uses them in contemporary ways, while creating unique backgrounds for her embroideries from the vintage fabrics she collects. Sue’s excitement for her topics and process comes through in every 2-D and 3-D item she crafts. Small Stitches: Sue Bibby is at Farfield Mill, Sedbergh, 9 April–13 July. farfieldmill.org suebibbyembroidery.co.uk MEET THE READER-MAKER…

■ BEST KNOWN FOR HER soft sculptures made predominantly with crochet and stitch, and a stalwart of British feminist art, Birmingham-based Su Richardson is currently preparing for her largest solo exhibition to date at Birmingham’s Midlands Arts Centre (MAC). Showcasing a career spanning over 50 years, the exhibition will be curated in thematic sections that showcase Richardson’s work, ranging from the 1970s through to newly made pieces shown for the first time. One of her important series of new works takes the form of crocheted circles, using chains of stitch made into words and embellished with appliquéd fabrics and found objects. Each takes a socio-political message as its starting point. ‘I call them blankets,’ Richardson explains. ‘One of them is about dementia. Another is a“bad words” blanket, including words sometimes…

■ DAVID MORRISH HASTURNED an idiomatic page to arrive at a new chapter which is fairly dark and macabre. Describing himself as a‘digital disruptor’ with an affinity for edgy street art and tatoos, and their repeating iconic skull motif, it’s not an entirely new incarnation. However, the more commercial work of this senior fashion academic at Sheffield Hallam University, seen in his practice Kingfly which creates digital embroideries for fashion and interiors, has been appropriately described as‘a feast of colour and texture’ by pop star and client Dannii Minogue. While the two sides of his work are not quite schismatic, recent images are striking in their depiction of skeletal forms and young life: a skeleton cradling a baby and in a separate piece, a kitten, as well as a skeletal…

‘What are the origins of Blackwater Textile Art Group? There has been a textile group inTollesbury, Essex, for more than 18 years, but the lockdown gave us an opportunity to re-evaluate the future of this group. Lorraine Traer-Clark then formed BlackwaterTextile Art Group in 2021, made up of members who wanted to exhibit and pursue their own work. BlackwaterTextile Art Group has since gained a broader membership with a wide age-range. Members have diverse careers and backgrounds, ranging from print design, teaching and weaving to garden design, pottery, fine art and commerce. The group has constantly evolved and is open to new ideas, with new members bringing fresh viewpoints and experience. Is there an overriding principle that binds you together? We aim to grow our skill-sets and continually evaluate and…

Get Embroidery Magazine delivered straight to your door for just £36.99 per year (£54.99 Internationally). Or choose our Print & Digital Archive Subscription - pay £51.99 annually (£69.99 Internationally) and enjoy: ✔ 6 print issues delivered to your door ✔ Instant access to our fully searchable digital archive ✔ Over 450 archived issues dating back to 1922. scan here! SUBSCRIBE TODAY athttps://bit.ly/EMBRMAG CALL THE HOTLINE on 01778 392 468 EMBROIDERYMAGAZINE.CO.UK…

ON SHOW ABERDEEN ArtistTextiles: Picasso to Warhol, until 13 Apr. Plus, Reading Between the Lines: Embroidered Samplers, until 30 Nov. Aberdeen Art Gallery, Schoolhill AB10 1FQ. aberdeencity.gov.uk ALDEBURGH AlongThese Lines by BlackwaterTextile Art Group, 10–16 Apr. The Aldeburgh Gallery IP15 5AN. instagram.com/blackwatertextileart ARUNDEL Constructed & A woven sketchbook: Justine Randall, until 15 Mar. Plus, Tell me a story, including five artists working with textiles, 29 Mar–17 May. Gallery 57, 57Tarrant Street BN18 9DJ. gallery57.co.uk AYLESBURY On a Grand Scale–larger works in the Embroiderers’ Guild Collection. Ongoing. Discover Bucks Museum HP20 2PQ. discoverbucksmuseum.org BATH Diedrick Brackens: Woven Stories, until 26 May. The Holburne Museum, Great Pulteney Street BA2 4DB. holburne.org BIRMINGHAM Su Richardson: In Stitches, 8 Mar–1 Jun. MAC, Cannon Hill Park B12 9QH. macbirmingham.co.uk BRIGHTON Running Stitch: Impressions of running…