*home of the portfolio life.
GCSE Textiles Day? - Check
First of four 'Postcards Home' schools' workshops? - Check
Commission for local primary school in planning stages? - Check
New job in professional tapestry studio? - CHECK!!
The 'Postcards' workshops are designed as an exploration of historical (WWI) postcards, imagery from the memorial chapels in the Cathedral and thinking about the messages pupils would choose to send home. Pilot sessions this week with various schools, ready to be rolled out in the autumn - led in future by the education volunteers trained during this week.
The school will have a series of six outdoor tapestry panels based on their school 'footsteps' and incorporating figures drawn by the children. We begin weaving later in March; I shall be on site one day a week for six weeks and groups will continue to work in-between. It's a lovely friendly school and should be a very enjoyable project.
The big (and long-awaited) news is that I am going to be working in the West Dean Tapestry Studio for a while on a commissioned large tapestry as part of a team of weavers. It is a brilliant chance to experience being a studio weaver - with all the differences from designing my own work entailed in that. I do not know yet whether I will be allowed to blog details of the project (sometimes work from the studio has to be confidential until exhibited), but I can certainly share my experiences / lessons learned etc. I start tomorrow, just two days this week because of 'Postcards', but thereafter will be four days a week on the weaving bench. VERY excited by this new phase!
