The Medieval Historian and I went to the Stroud International Textiles Select 2014 today. We went to the main exhibition in the Museum in the Park, which was fine, and had some nice work by Caroline Bartlett, but the majority was not really what I would call textiles. Nice though it was, there seemed to be quite a lot of ceramics and paper. Another venue, The Pink Cabbage Gallery, had some absolutely wonderful work by a group called Sticky Paper whose members include Liz Valenti, Diane Jefferies, Tamsin Golesworthy, Susi Harries and Gabriel Broad. The works were in paper, but I really loved everything in the show. The website for Sticky Paper gives a good overview of the collection. The show was paper works mainly about clothing, but there were some very nice boats as well. I would really recommend this show, which is a short walk up the main hill through Stroud and is on until 24 May 2014.
I’ve been noticing a lot of thing classed as textiles that really really aren’t lately as well, it’s like saying cars are edible and I don’t understand why. Are textiles suddenly so trendy that other plastic arts want to muscle in?
That would be a very encouraging sign. I would have liked a bit more textiles – but those collages were lovely.
Ann- thankyou for your comments & enthusiasm for our work. Please do make yourself known to us if you’re back in Stroud. As well as work in the museum & gallery, our studio will be open the next two weekends. Best wishes. Liz Valenti.
Thanks for this. I would love to see more of your work. My big academic project at the moment is on Laura Ashley, so work on clothing is dear to my heart!