Date: exhibition is running from the 28th-31st August 2023
Time: 11:00am – 16:00pm
Location: The Fishing Quarter Gallery, Brighton, BN1 1NB
Artists: Jane Spedding, Tracie Bignell, Pauline Buchanan, Carol Eremin, Liz Ganney, Tina Proctor, Janis Simmonds and Kelly Cheesley.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themovingneedle/?hl=en
Free Textile art exhibition in Brighton
After meeting during a two-year fashion and textile course, eight women decided to form a textile collective to keep inspiring each other with their fabric creations. Joining forces in November 2019, the first challenge the Moving Needle group faced was lockdown. They managed to weather this storm by continuing their monthly meetings on Zoom and sending fabric around to each other’s houses.
This event on Brighton Beach is the second exhibition the group has held, with the first taking part at the Phoenix Gallery last June. The show features all new material and has been organised around four themes: natural dyed, Use Me (recycling material), Shell Embroidery and Dorset Buttons. After the successful exhibition at the Phoenix Gallery, the women immediately knew they wanted to work towards another event and found The Fishing Quarter Gallery an agreeable and affordable space.
“With eight of us it is easier to organise, and we will be rotating our attendance throughout the exhibition, talking to people about our work and the inspiration behind it,” Jane Spedding tells WeLoveBrighton. “I am from Brighton and the other members are from Worthing, Chichester, Ringmer, West London – we are from all over. And there are new people who want to join so we may take a couple of people on before our next exhibition.”
As well as meeting in Southwick once a month (now in person), the group also take part in courses together and recently completed a natural dying course which spawned the creation of many of the pieces on display. Artist Bethany Duffy was also on hand to teach the group the skill of shell embroidery.
Another workshop taught the group more about how to make Dorset Buttons and the history behind them. Originating in the English country of Dorset, the button is a style of craft-made button which was manufactured at its peak between 1622 and 1850. The group took to making them like ducks to water and this can be seen by the large table display in the exhibition.
One charming piece by Tina Proctor is a Four Seasons-inspired embroidered piece which is hand dyed and hand stitched onto natural silk and cotton. This piece, like a few others, is already spoken for but most of the artwork on display is available to purchase. The delightfully colourful and diverse Dorset Buttons make a great gift for broach lovers and the shell-embroidered hoops a nice gift for ocean lovers.
Tracie Bignell decided to get involved in the world of textiles following a career in computer programming and after her husband passed away. “I always wanted to do something like this, and I finally had the time to do it,” says Tracie. “The two-year course was a big commitment and a lot of hard work, but we now have so many skills and it’s great we can exhibit our work to the public like this.”
Bignell says that working on themes at the same time and sharing work over WhatsApp has been a great help artistically, and that the women benefit from the social network they have created as well. She welcomes everyone down to the exhibition and just hopes that people enjoy themselves.
