Making connections

 

This mixed exhibition at the Crafts Study Centre makes connections between donors, trustees, teachers, pupils in fact anyone with a link to the Centre. At a talk by Pat Carter, who selected the exhibits, it was described as a way of talking about the Centre’s collection and exhibiting pieces from it. It includes calligraphy, ceramics, textiles, woodwork and monoprints. I enjoyed the beautiful weaving by Tim Parry Williams, Nao Fukumoto and Ethel Mairet, Stella Benjamin’s bright yellow rug and Peter Collingwood’s macrogauze, but my favourite textiles were Ann Richards’ clever necklaces, which are woven flat and do not take on their complex folded form until they are exposed to water. The connection between Lucie Rie and Issey Miyake was new to me. After seeing her work, he organised an exhibition of her ceramics in Tokyo and also used her ceramic buttons in his fashion designs. Some of the buttons are in the exhibition as well as one of the moulds she used to make them. There are also some of her iconic ceramics as well as those of Edmund de Waal, and a large jar by Magdalena Odundo as well as some of her lively and colourful monoprints. However, the most interesting piece in the entire exhibition is a piece of paper containing the agenda of a meeting which the ceramicist Henry Hammond attended – the entire sheet of paper is covered in doodles of bowls and decorations for them. I thought this summed up the craftsperson’s life so well, even when bogged down by administration his mind was roaming free and designing his next piece of work.