Contemporary Community Textile Artist Derbyshire UK
Collaboration Kindness Carbon Sensitivity
The Risers
COVert Arts Exhibition
Selected As One Of Ten Artists For COVert Arts
Period
2021
My Role
Exhibiting Artist
Project Type
Group Exhibition
Location
The BOX, Fargo Village, Coventry
Project Overview
In 2021 I was selected as one of ten artists for The Risers, a COVert Arts exhibition at The BOX in Fargo Village, Coventry. I showed my collaborative women's lantern alongside work from my individual practice. That combination mattered because it allowed community made textile work and my own studio work to sit in the same contemporary art setting rather than being treated as two separate parts of what I do.
From Community Making To Exhibition
The lantern had grown from my work with women during the pandemic, gathering stitched words, messages and pieces of cloth into a willow and textile form that was later carried through the streets of Coventry. The lotus inspired structure held ideas about resilience, care and emerging from a difficult period. You can follow that earlier collaborative story on my Coventry Clootie Lantern project page.
When the lantern was selected for The Risers, it moved into a different context. COVert Arts brought together ten selected artists and promoted the exhibition beyond Coventry. For me, the shift was useful because it showed that a work made through participation could still hold its place within an exhibition without losing the relationships and many hands that had formed it.
Why The Risers Mattered
The exhibition arrived at a point when I was still working out how my individual textile practice and my community practice fitted together. Seeing them side by side helped me stop treating one as more serious than the other. It strengthened an idea that has stayed central to my work since: collaboration can be part of the artistic method itself, not an activity added around the edges of an artist's practice.
