4 minute read
COCKPIT ARTS
Three new weavers have joined the Cockpit Arts studio with a bursary funded by The Clothworkers’ Company.
Alicia Rowbotham is a bespoke textile designer with a focus on sustainable and responsible design. Her practice focuses on collaboration between manufacturers and designers, harnessing the potential of textile mill waste and utilising this resource for the benefit of both the industry and the designer. Since graduating from Central Saint Martins with a specialist degree in woven textiles in 2019, Alicia has been driven by the reclamation of traditional, established craft methods in a contemporary context. She is currently working with Joyce Wang Studio on the refurbishment of The Berkeley Hotel, Knightsbridge, and creating a range of decorative textile elements with waste materials inspired by a ‘Makers House’ concept of collaborative craftsmanship.
Francesca Miotti graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2020. She works with weaving as a medium to be included in several contexts, moving away from the usual idea of cloth and using the technical restrictions of the process to allow a more conscious experience with materials and their qualities. Recently, Francesca collaborated with a Reggio Emilia Approach nursery, gathering inspiration from the natural responses of children towards materials and textile techniques, using hand-weaving as a way of translating the actions into sculptural sensory and interactive pieces which embody this relationship. She uses a variety of weaving and traditional hand-finishing techniques, as well as basketry, to combine paper yarns and different fibres.
After graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2018, Millie Thomas worked within the woven textiles industry in Italy, designing for an Italian weaving mill, and in London for a heritage woven textiles company. Millie takes a biomimetic approach to her work, drawing inspiration from nature to create bold patterns, 3D textures and elegant structures. She uses extra weft figuring techniques and warp floats – mixing yarn types, colours and finishes. She aims to continue developing her practice to explore the intersection between science and design, integrating the beauty and complexity of nature into fabrics and products.
Below: A sample of Millie’s work.
Facing page: One of Francesca’s projects features on the top, with an example of Alicia’s work beneath it.
2018 AWARD RECIPIENTS
Meanwhile, Our Clothworkers’ Award recipients from 2018 are getting ready for the next step and new challenges.
We’ve seen amazing things from Poppy Fuller Abbott, who creates abstract textile designs often inspired by magic, and has an experimental approach, using sustainable paper yarn and natural dyes in her textiles. Follow her work on Instagram: @PoppyFullerAbbott.
Elle Decoration Award winner (2017) Vicky Cowin is moving into her own studio at Cockpit. She specialises in hand-woven art and interior products, using complex techniques to weave tactile designs. Follow her work on Instagram: @VickyCowin.
Sophie Graney combines hand-woven techniques with a passion for material exploration and unconventional yarns. Rubber-coated yarn dominated one of her recent collections, alongside handdeveloped PVC and leather with thick, chunky sections. Follow her work on Instagram: @SophieGraney. Elizabeth Ashdown focuses on hand-woven, hand-constructed and hand-embellished Passementerie that are designed to be worn on the body as playful, luxurious and exuberant decorations and accessories. She also weaves bespoke lengths that are used to decorate interior accessories and furnishings. Shortly after joining Cockpit, Elizabeth won our commission for a decorative woven insert for the 2019 Charity Governance Awards trophies. Follow her work on Instagram: @AshdownTextiles.
MAKING COMMUNITY: THE COCKPIT EFFECT 2020
Makers based at Cockpit Arts make a big contribution to the capital’s thriving creative industries, according to the Cockpit Effect (2020) report.
The 147 businesses based at Cockpit’s studios enjoyed increasing profitability in 2019. Together these jewellers, ceramicists, weavers and woodturners (some of whom are international leaders in their field) generated £5.9 million in total annual sales. Profits and GVA grew by an average 12% and 20%, respectively, against an increase in turnover of 7.7%, for those reporting two years’ data.
In the craft sector, as with retail more generally, market conditions continue to challenge. Last year, the Mayor of London highlighted the threat to studio space in the capital – with a loss of 17% of affordable spaces and a forecast drop of a further 24%.
Cockpit makers’ success is down to how they marry exceptional skill and artistic excellence with savvy business sense cultivated by the inhouse enterprise support at Cockpit’s Deptford and Holborn studios.
This impressive impact has not gone unnoticed. For a second year, Cockpit was recognised on the NatWest SE100 index of the top 100 UK social enterprises. And this year the social enterprise was also shortlisted for the SE100 Impact Champion Award.
Find out more about Cockpit Arts, the ‘Cockpit Effect’, and our weavers at: cockpitarts.com.
Facing page: Example of Vicky Cowin’s work. When she won the Elle Decoration Award, she said, ‘I’m inspired by signs and symbols, alchemy and traditional costume. I mix up ideas, creating a drawing effect with warps and wefts.’ See more at vickycowin.co.uk.
