Tag: textiles

Craft Pods 2022-23: Francesca Rea

For the first time since the Pods began touring in 2009, we are delighted to be featuring a textile artist, Francesca Rea, in the 2022-23 tour. Francesca is one of the Materialise 4 artists, and we look forward to exploring her work further in the display itself, and also the accompanying online exhibition on our microsite.

Francesca is a Northern Irish designer, currently based in Edinburgh. She was taught basic hand-sewing by her grandmother, but didn’t actually do any embroidery until her foundation art course at DJCAD (Dundee University). She became completely hooked by it and completed her degree there in Textile Design.

For her graduate project, she designed eco-friendly burial wear. This project, called ‘Return to Earth’, won her several awards: she was a runner-up in a nationwide design competition, and had her work written about in newspapers and magazines.

Since graduating in May 2020, she has returned to doing embroidery commissions for people, mostly on clothing, and usually illustrative.  She’d love to illustrate a children’s book in embroidery!

This year’s tour will again visit a range of venues across Fife, from libraries to schools and community organisations. You can find out more about Francesca’s work, including how to pick up some easy embroidery skills yourself, on the microsite exhibition.

Header image: Francesca Rea, embroidered Echinacea flowers

Associated Events

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The Fife Contemporary Craft Pods aim to tour small displays of high quality craft to non-gallery venues around Fife, allowing new audiences and more people to discover art in unexpected places.

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Fife-based Artists – Craft Scotland’s Summer Show 2018

Living in Fife as we do, it’s always a pleasure to see Fife-based artists applying successfully to national events like Craft Scotland’s annual Summer Show at White Stuff on Edinburgh’s George Street

This is no small bread as only a relatively small number of artists are selected each year from a much larger pool. Therefore to have four artists from Fife in this year’s exhibition is something worth shouting about.

So, without any more ado, the Fife roll call for the 2018 show is as follows:

• Jan Hamilton who runs Balgarvie Weaving in Cupar

• Caroline Finlay, creator of wonderfully colourful enamel jewellery, based in Dunfermline

• Kate Trouw, also a jeweller, based at Sea Loft studio in Kinghorn

• Jo Walker, a ceramic artist who works near Dunfermline

Craft Scotland’s Summer Show opens to the public on Friday 3 August, running until 26th. You will find these 4 Fife artists along with 33 others on the 2nd floor at White Stuff (Fringe Venue 205, 89 George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 3ES).

Opening hours are daily 10am-6pm, except Thursday: 10am – 7pm and Sunday: 11am – 5pm

In addition, there are maker-led workshops for you to try your hand at being creative. These are bookable through the Edinburgh Festival Fringe website, search under venue 205.

See also @craftscotland  #edsummershow  @balgarvieweaving  @caroline_finlay  @katetrouwjewellery  @jowalkerceramics

Behind the Scenes at ‘Ley Lines’

It was with great anticipation that we awaited the arrival of Kate Scardifield and her work at St Andrews Museum in late 2017.

Choreographed by the Glasgow-based  project curators, Catriona Duffy and Lucy McEachan of Panel, she had visited the museum (and Fife Council’s Museum Collection) the previous summer when she had a mini residency to explore the content of museum & archive collections of 6 local authorities around Scotland.

She’d also shared photographs of the developing new work, so we did have an idea of what to expect. But what excitement when the beautifully printed black velvet panels were unrolled for the first time!

The whole installation week was packed with activity.  As we were fortunate to have Kate with us for the week, various press interviews had been arranged including one for Janice Forsyth’s radio show, a filmed interview for STV, and 2 with University of St Andrews student art publications:

Kate Scardifield interview for STV, 28 Nov 2017

Nor did Kate just spend her time doing press interviews!  She took a very active part in the installation process of her work, ensuring that it looked its best for the public to see. During the opening event in December, Kate also gave an interesting guided tour/talk of the exhibition.

The exhibition continues at St Andrews Museum until Saturday 3 March (open Wed to Sat, 10.30am to 4pm, admission free).  ‘Ley Lines’ is a wonderful show to visit if you haven’t done so already – a combination of film, textiles, sculpture, historic objects that links Scotland and Australia.

There are also free drop-in activities in the adjoining room for younger visitors (plus a free banner-making workshop on Thurs 15 Feb).

Curated by Panel in partnership with Fife Contemporary; Co Create (Maggie Broadley); Falkirk Community Trust; Heriot Watt University; Live Borders;  and supported in kind by the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS) Sydney; Ley Lines is kindly supported through Creative Scotland’s Open Fund.