UNmaking - Textile Study Group - Constance Howard Gallery, London

Constance Howard and her unfinished piece The Second Lady

 

Earlier this year I went to see UNmaking - An Exhibition of Process & Practice by the Textile Study Group at the Constance Howard Gallery, Deptford Town Hall, London. Constance Howard, textile artist, embroiderer and teacher, was instrumental in establishing the Textile Study Group.  Set up in 1973, it was originally a support group for embroidery teachers under her guidance.  Now it is a group of international textile artists with innovative approaches to their art and teaching.

The exhibition starts from the premise that the embodied nature of making means that the making process is often taken for granted.  Here the Group are looking to question this through the deconstruction process, ultimately to inform the development of their work, why they make and what makes a finished piece.

Here are some of the pieces on show...

Sian Martin - Conserve and Recover: the story of peat

Here Sian Martin has pulled fabric apart either partly or completely with a view to remaking it into something new. She sees this deconstruction of fabric as echoing the breaking down of organic matter to form peat - a new form with many beneficial characteristics.

Alice Blackstock - Deconstructed Left Sleeve

Alice Blackstock's deconstruction of a shirt has given her a new appreciation of the processes involved in its construction.

Alice Fox - Nest

Alice Fox deconstructed an abandoned nest found on her allotment.  In so doing she was able to identify the materials that she could reuse in this work.

Dorothy Tucker - And then...

Dorothy Tucker started by cutting up leek heads, examining and drawing them which led to this stitched work.

Gillian Cooper - Manes

The Manes in Ancient Rome were deities formed from the souls of deceased loved ones.  This idea is used here by Gillian Cooper. Scraps from a long ago projects are brought together in a new piece which becomes a shrine to those initial works.

Janet Edmonds - The hardest thing of all is to see what is really there...

Inspired by the routes we follow - roads, railways, paths - Janet Edmonds has made a series of grids that she has turned into 3D forms.  She sees these as representing our complex paths through life.

Sarah Burgess - Sweet Dreams Were Made Of This...

Sarah Burgess's pillowcase, printed with cyanotypes and lithography and stitched, represents the dreams that unravel and evaporate as we wake, departing until we go back to bed and dream again.

Shelley Rhodes - Kerkyra Cloth

Shelley Rhodes made this piece from a scarf that she found while out walking.  It has been deconstructed, cut up, stained, painted, abraded and put back together with patches and stitching in a Japanese Boro-like manner.

Gwen Hedley - Reconstructed

Here Gwen Hedley has deconstructed an old book and, using only the materials and processes used making the original book, she has reconstructed a new work of collage.

Although this exhibition has now finished in London, it reopens at Museum in the Park, Stroud GL5 4AF from 12 September – 8 November 2026.  Go see...