Inspiring visit to Designing Women exhibition

As part of our course, each term, there is a visit to an exhibition, usually with a textile theme. This term's was to the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey to see an exhibition celebrating the talents of a group of British women designing textiles from the 1950s onwards. On until 16th June, this is well worth a visit.

The graphic quality of these designs is still striking, and a few of these designs are still in print, particularly Calyx by Lucienne Day.

The Fashion and Textile museum is great value for money as there is always an additional exhibition or two showing in the same venue. This time there is an exhibition of The Printed Square ( about handkerchieves - more interesting than it sounds and accompanied by a lovely book) and one about Sanderson and their textile designs. It shows how their designers use a combination of archive material, painting and digital technology to arrive at current designs.



I also crammed in a visit to The London Glassblowing Studio, on the same street. Even more mind-boggling than usual, not only the glass on display in the gallery, but the astonishing artistry of the blowers, who were blowing giant, brilliant red and black glass poppies as we watched, for future display at this exhibition.

Full of inspiration, back to the Morley studio, where it took me two hours to print 9 triangles - it's all a learning experience.