Event category: Exhibition

Winner of the 2010 Inspired by Morris group show, Nicola Jarvis returns to the William Morris Gallery with a solo exhibition. A hand-embroidery specialist, Jarvis’s new work includes works on paper and textiles created in dialogue with the techniques and ideas championed by William Morris’s daughter, May Morris. Jarvis’s work will be exhibited alongside rarely seen archive materials offering refreshing new perspectives on May Morris’s career.

Lizzie Hughes’s diverse practice includes installation, video, sound works and performance

Working with the gallery’s archive, Hughes will investigate William Morris’s tireless pursuit of learning and enter into a dialogue with the local community. The amateur interests Hughes as someone often undertaking a solitary pursuit, an autodidact who finds unorthodox and innovative ways to solve problems. The residency will include a public event for amateur craftspeople to contribute to a lasting record of the residency.

Biomedical artifacts such as notes, scans and surgeons’ theatre drawings, are superimposed onto patients’ portraits, forcing a critical reflection on the patient’s and surgeon’s vision of each other. This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project at Whipps Cross University Hospital between Emma Barnard Artist in Residence and Michael Papesch Consultant Surgeon.

The Patient as Paper project is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

On display in the Discovery Lounge.

Living in North East London, the highly skilled designers and makers featured in this exhibition work in all kinds of spaces from tiny garden sheds to kitchen tables and railway arches, yet sell their wares in some of London’s grandest stores. Nicola Tree photographed them in the process of making, capturing the emotion, ritual and intricacy of their craft.

This exhibition will be held in the Tea room and Discovery Lounge.

The acclaimed British fashion designer is known for his extravagant, evocative designs. His sources of inspiration range from pop culture to William Morris and William De Morgan. This exhibition tells the story of one of his latest catwalk creations; from the first concept through to the choice and manufacture of materials and the art of making.

The work was produced during a week long creative project at the gallery, learning digital photography and Photoshop skills and then working in the studio with local artist Errol Reuben Fernandes.

The William Morris Gallery’s Young People’s Programme provides art and craft activities, events and learning experiences for young people aged 16 to 22 free of charge. The programme is curated by the Waltham Forest Young Advisors in partnership with the William Morris Gallery.

An exhibition in the Discovery Lounge.

Contemporary double of Jane Morris, Dutch artist Margje Bijl, shows a series of self-portraits, staged and photographed in William and Jane Morris’s former homes. Referring back to Jane’s life story, Margje Bijl makes Jane’s environment her own. The exhibition marks the centenary of Jane’s death in January 1914. See more of Margje’s work on her website: www.reflectionsonjanemorris.com

An exhibition in the Discovery Lounge.

Taking inspiration from Celtic art patterns and lettering forms, calligrapher Diana Furlong shows two contrasting series of artwork. Furlong uses scale by zooming in and out to differentiate between modern and traditional gilding and illumination skills.

This exhibition is held in the Tea Room as part of the E17 Art Trail.

A philanthropic organisation founded in the UK during the late 1800s, the Association’s main objective was to train working class men and boys from rural areas. The trainees would learn crafts that had once flourished but were close to extinction, thus providing them with a worthy pastime and means of earning a living. At the time blacksmithing was still a thriving trade, however today it is estimated that there are only 2,000 blacksmiths working professionally in the UK.

The sculptures on display, a set of potentially functional hinges, take their form from the psychological tests devised in the 1920’s by Hermann Rorschach. The tests exploit the human desire to find form in pattern and abstraction. The main title of the work is taken from a review of Morris’ work which featured in the 1899 annual exhibition held by the Arts and Crafts Exhibition. The critic suggested that the skilfully subdued tones of Morris’ tapestries and carpets were similar to the colours of historic textiles, faded over hundreds of years; “…a Morris tapestry, if it survive for three hundred years, will be but a ghost of a ghost”.

For Hughes, the phrase “ghost of a ghost” echoed her own response to a potentially beautiful door hinge concealed under decades of paint in the Gallery’s Learning Centre. Hughes has spent the last twelve months studying blacksmithing and is conscious that ironmongery, once considered highly decorative, is becoming increasingly invisible. The scultpures simultaneously draw attention to quality craftsmanship hidden all around us and pay homage to the dedicated group of blacksmiths both amateur and professional who are keeping this ancient tradition alive.

The artist would like to thank Richard Pace and Neil Stuart of Design Blacksmith

This exhibition takes place in the Story Lounge.

Morris and the Amateur Craftsman: slideshow of research from Lizzie Hughes’s residency

During her residency, Lizzie researched the notion of the amateur craftsman in relation to Morris’s legacy. The slideshow juxtaposes images that Lizzie discovered in the archives of the Gallery alongside images of craftwork produced locally by people who contributed to a study day at the gallery in November 2013.

William Morris Gallery Artist in Residence programme

Lizzie Hughes lives and works in Leytonstone. The Artist in Residence programme is open to artists who live or work in Waltham Forest. Shortlisting takes place annually in January.

About Lucille Junkere

Lucille Junkere is a textile artist and dyer. Her work combines millinery skills perfected at the London College of Fashion with the fluid character of machine embroidery. She is concerned with the social and environmental impact of the textile industry and uses textile waste, water based inks, natural fibres and dyes in her work.

In the Caribbean, Lucille researched the loss of textile traditions through colonialism. She then started a deeper exploration of her own cultural ancestry through the history and use of indigo dye. Her residency at the gallery is part of her personal and artistic journey.

About the residency

During her residency Lucille will focus on the relationship between William Morris, Thomas Wardle and indigo, their skill in mastering the complexity of the indigo dye vat, their descriptions of the dye process and their meticulous artistic approach to documenting their samples and dye experiments.

Lucille has called her residency All Blues inspired by the title of a track from the album Kind of Blue by Miles Davies. The lyrics and melody capture the beauty and complex, painful history surrounding natural indigo dye. Blues music was the spiritual connection between the indigo plant, grown in many southern American slave plantations, and the West African slaves who sang of their suffering as they worked on the cotton that the indigo dyed. These songs became known as “the Blues”.