Skeinspotting

New Exhibition of Textiles Design

There is a current exhibition Beyond Bloomsbury on at the to the Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House open until September 20th. The exhibition is of the designs produced in the Omega workshops by the Bloomsbury Group. These were a group of designers, artists, philosophers and writers that came together in the home of Virginia Wolf. Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry and Duncan Grant were the main visual artists of this group .

The exhibition includes some of the textiles designs, and sketches given as instructions as a guide and also shows some of the products that were made up from the designs. See more about it in this video clip.



I find this particularly fascinating because like some of these designers, I am not a person who has any kind of technical background or training. I draw up niaive sketches in my design journal and in my mind, these end up close to the finished pieces. I love the way that in this woven rug, you can see that all the imperfections and character of the original piece of art were literally translated in the pattern of the rug.



Now what is quite exciting, is that the gallery are allowing 4 knitters at any one time, so 8 per day to do shifts sitting in the gallery and producing their own 'art'. If you are interested in volunteering for this, then contact David Drozdziak, david@charitiesadvisorytrust.org.uk to let him know your preferred shift.
If I wasn't so weak and wobbly as I am at the moment, I would be down there doing a shift but I shall most certainly be going to visit Somerset House and The Courtauld Gallery at some point to view the exhibition.