Needle Forge Museum

The Needle Forge Museum near Redditch holds a number of textile exhibitions every year. Redditch was the needle manufacturing centre for England at one time. Recently that trade has gone abroad - but Redditch has kept the prestige (=expensive) trade at home. They make surgical needles and medical needles in general.

So you see the connection between needles and textile shows. The current Exhibition is headed by Alice Kettle and Karina Thompson  and some of their students have work on show as well. The unifying theme was that everything was done with a computer controlled embroidery sewing machine. The work shown on the left was one of several by Jessica Scott. I wish she had stiffened up her background circle. The stitching is tightly controlled but the circle was not flat.

Karina Thompson's work was based on DNA and chromosomes. She had several on this theme. Complex lettering in the background and shapes in the front. I liked these pieces. Very crisp.

Some of the students I had come across before, for example, Rachel Gornall with circles of stiff material cut out and re-inserted so that it could spin on an axis in its own original hole. There were also altered books. and some heavily embroidered silk chiffon.

After viewing the Exhibition, I went across the river to look at the remnants of the abbey - Cistercian dating back to 12th century. The church was large and the bases of the pillars were enormous but not a lot ls left above ground. Clearly there had been encaustic tiles on the floors but only fragments were found. These have been assembled and cemented down and the photo shows how varied the patterns were.

Time after that to get on the motorway and go home.