Exhibitions online: Collections Re-crafted

Introduction

Collections Re-crafted presented a colourful and fascinating array of art textile exhibits by members of the Eastern Region Textile Forum (ERFT). The display represented the ERTF members’ creative responses to the town of Saffron Walden and to objects and specimens in the Museum’s wide-ranging collections.

In June and July 2017, the members of the Eastern Region Textile Forum were invited to Saffron Walden Museum to view the Museum displays. A further selection of fascinating items from the Museum’s stores was provided, to help inspire their Saffron Walden-themed textile artworks.  The textile artists took photographs and made sketches, which they then used as points of reference to produce their own creative responses to the town, the Museum and its collections. 

The finished artworks were divided into a range of themes for exhibition: People & Place, Collecting & Connecting, Naturally Inspired, Objects in Time and the Saffron Crocus.  They referenced the town’s traditional industries, its architectural features and notable items from the Museum’s collections and displays, such as Wallace the Lion, archaeological finds, geological specimens and social history material. 

Quotes from the artists:

 

“Saffron Walden Museum is a treasure trove full of amazing inspirational artefacts; a true inspiration for any artist!”

(Carole Nicholls, ERTF exhibition co-ordinator)

“I was tremendously inspired by Saffron Walden as a modern, buzzing market town and as a site of historic interest: a place where past, present and future can clearly be seen. I was fascinated by the museum’s encyclopaedic collections”

 (Lou Haywood, ERTF artist)

“Saffron Walden Museum is a marvellous local resource. We are extremely lucky to have it”

(Marian Murphy, ERTF artist)

 

Said Jenny Oxley, Collections Officer (Human History) at Saffron Walden Museum “The exhibition is a real snapshot of the town and the Museum’s collections, captured in textiles, and as one of the ERTF artists themselves have described it, they paint in textiles.”

 

The Eastern Region Textile Forum (ERTF) was launched in April 2008 at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in Chelmsford by a steering group of five members: Christine Spencer, Miriam Weaver, Marie Payne, Lorraine Traer-Clark and Jenny Leslie. ERTF is open for membership to anyone over the age of 18, from any part of the UK.  The group meets and runs textile events, exhibitions and projects in the Eastern Region, which they define as London (East, North and Central), Essex, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Hertfordshire.