Putting the Text into Textiles
Dates: 7 April - 11 April 2025 (mon - fri)
Location: Elphin near Ullapool
Course Places: FULL Please enquire using the email link below.
Price : £500
Tutor: Jan Kilpatrick
I have long been fascinated by the relationship between image and word. Frequently, I use both in the making of art, but which comes to me first – the picture in my mind’s eye or the words running through my head? I find that it is not a simple question and, anyway, does the answer really matter? All I know is that by combining text and imagery, I come close to fully expressing my ‘voice’.
This course is designed to help you find a role for text in your own textile work. You will work with a personal theme for the whole week, building up a variety of surfaces that contain both image and word. You will discover ways of generating a language that is unique to you and your theme, including taking part in creative writing activities. You will experiment with using text drawn from these sessions to make pattern and patina that will be embedded within your work, as well as using it in a more overt way, to tell a story alongside or inside your work. And you will learn a wide range of stitch and non-stitch techniques for presenting text, including couching, burning, batik and gilding. Along the way, you will consider the significance of colour and composition as you start to develop your own signature approach to putting the text into textiles.
Jan's studio is in Elphin, overlooking the magnificent mountains of Suilven, Canisp, Cul Mor and Cul Beag. This remote location means that accommodation is a little more difficult to find, but the experience of visiting this area makes the search well worthwhile. Many course participants opt to stay in Ullapool, which is 20 minutes drive away. It is a most picturesque fishing village, with a good range of accommodation to suit all budgets. There are many restaurants and takeaways and shops, as well as some evening entertainment, should you have any energy left at the end of that day's workshop. And students often group together and car share for their daily trip up the road, past Stac Pollaidh, to the studio. Please look at the Accommodation links page to find out more.
To read about an innovative community partnership approach to preserving and improving this landscape for the benefit of all, have a look at Coigach and Assynt Living Landscapes. To find out about the fascinating geology of this area go to North West Highland Geopark.
