Two textiles study visits coming up!

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Two trips have been organised to the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh and Salts Mill in West Yorkshire for Saturday 7th September and Saturday 26th October respectively.
As part of the International Edinburgh Festival the Dovecot Studios are hosting, ‘Follow the Thread’: a celebration of weaving and wool. The £12 million refurbished site, (formally home to Edinburgh’s oldest public baths) is an exceptional setting for this famous, one-hundred year old tapestry studio in the heart of the City. This trip is planned to start at 11am. We will be seeing two exhibitions firstly, ‘Fleece to Fibre: The Making of the Large Tree Group Tapestry – a remarkable interpretation of Victoria Crowe’s celebrated painting, Large Tree Group (1975) which charts the journey ‘from sheep, (using un-dyed wool) to yarn to tapestry’; and secondly, ‘Artists Rugs’: Dovecot’s Contemporary Rug Collection – from the likes of artists such as Alan Davie, Ruth Ewan and John Byrne. A Curator’s Tour by Ben Divall has been organised and there will be live spinning demonstrations by one of the groups involved.

Salt’s Mill is another extraordinary building. The former textile weaving empire of philanthropist, Titus Salt within the delightful Victorian model village of Saltaire near Bradford is now a World Heritage Site. It is also home to the permanent collection of artist, David Hockney. Cloth & Memory 2 is the second exhibition by Professor of Textile Culture, Lesley Millar from the University of the Creative Arts. The exhibition will feature contemporary textile work from twenty-three emerging and established international artists in response to the ‘palpable history of place that is evident at Salt’s Mill’. The original and unrestored Spinning Room, baring the ‘marks and smells of its original use’ will be the setting for the site-specific textile artworks. This trip is planned to start with A Curator’s Tour at 10.30am and will include a paid ticket to the Cloth & Memory Seminar taking place from 1.30- 4pm. Come along, join fellow students and get inspired!
Please email: enquiries@oca-uk.com if you would like to book a free place to either or both of these events as soon as possible.