Members include embroiderers, spinners, weavers, papermakers and quilters although many of the artists have other specialities. The mixture of skills within the group provides a broad, lively environment in which to work.
Glen Gerrard 4/11/1943 – 2/01/2025
Glen Gerrard, our friend and fellow artist was a wonderful member of TAGS.
She was sympathetic, funny, charismatic, determined, strong, principled, kind and generous.
She was fearless in speaking out both in her work and personally.
Her work often dealt with the position of women and also devastating events such as the Grenfell fire, where she stitched all the victims’ names on to a tape.
Her work always maintained a wonderful freeness and spontaneity, never being overworked or over presented.
She had an extraordinary ability to use words succinctly and utterly accurately.
We will be forever grateful to have known Glen, a very special woman who we shall never forget.
Images from our 2024 exhibition
FOUND our 2023 theme.
Nell Rose
I collected these little things when the theme ‘Found’ was suggested for our exhibition; then, because I always weave, I made them this little woven box, I put them onto some raw sheep’s fleece because I love wool.
I had been thinking about the process of meditation for this exhibition I am working on a couple of pieces on that theme, I think the little things I collected might symbolise seeds or beginnings.
Alison Couchman
This clay pipe was found when we were restoring our last house. We needed to take an internal wall down and this was found, intact, inside the lath and plaster wall.
The house was built in the late 18th century and had been the vicarage before a more modern one was built. We can only speculate why the pipe was left in the wall. Perhaps the apprentice hid his gaffer’s pipe as a prank?
Glen Gerrard
While walking on the Yorkshire moors last summer I noticed this little frog lying dead on the path. S/he had dried out in the sun, black and rigid possibly drowned in rain storms that had recently sent torrents of water down the hills
I am fairly literal in my work, I usually start with inspiration from fabrics (I keep drawers of roughly similarly coloured cut offs and scraps) which suggest narratives to me
Froggie is more challenging, I am not drawn to design and pattern but her angular angles appealed to me so I am working on various frog manifestations using the green drawer
Beth Hendley
The texture of the bark and the colours of the lichen are what attracted me to these two pieces I found in a very special wood outside Ipswich.
Last summer I was horrified by forest fires around the world, including the UK. I wanted to know if woods and forests can regenerate, so I started to find information about this. Such extensive fires are a shocking result of climate change.
I am always drawn to woods; the peace, the textures, the birdsong, the shade, the trees, the variety of flora, the subterranean interconnectedness.
My work for the exhibition relates to this theme of finding peace, finding information and finding hope.
Jayne Stansfeld
The idea of found implies something seeking or looking for something – as part of my studies I was looking out for The observers book of birds when I found an album of 50 player’s cigarette cards each depicting and describing a bird on their nest. Information about the rapid decline in starling numbers shocked me into starting a series of sculptural wire and textile mobiles and street art drawings of starling murmurations
Liz Chester
I picked up this intriguing item from a shingle beach in Suffolk. I thought it was dried seaweed, but have since discovered it is a type of colony of animals.
Katie Walker
Travel has always been an important part of my life which has fueled my artistic journey as an everlasting memory.
My found object is the result of beachcombing in Rawhiti. On a lonely beach in a remote part of the Bay of Islands amid a plethora of ocean castaways was a whelk embedded in coral and an exoskeleton of a sea urchin found its way into my pocket.
Always feel guilty for my part in the destruction of the eco system, even though they were no longer alive, but the immense pleasure these pieces have bought remain with me. Poignant as I don’t feel I will be travelling such great distances again.
Hannah Rae
“if you start off with the found object, that object already had a history to draw on”
Cornelia Parker
Found objects are, on the whole, distinct and unique. They bear the marks and scars of use, fingerprints from previous owners, and they tell tales of their existence and where they have travelled. An object, when first found, triggers a sense of recognition in the finder. There is a feeling of knowing about your “find”, and a curiosity to learn more. By collecting “finds”, I invite their histories and narratives to inform my work. In my piece “Ness Cloth”, the found item has become the work. A found fragment picked up on Orford Ness and stitched with the stories whispered from objects found, close-by, on the shingle of the Ness.
Jenny Butcher
When walking along the coast I often come across objects that have been discarded or washed up by the tide; the child’s jelly shoe is just one example and I have been experimenting by making prints of the sole in clay.
I love the variety of nature’s patterns and can’t resist collecting stones and shells. I have been looking at these together with soluble fabric to create rigid versus fragile surfaces.
Amanda Warren
Usually I go sea bathing in the morning, but on this occasion I went in the afternoon. The light was slanting across the pebbles, illuminating the only piece of amber I’ve ever found. It was unmistakable, not like the yellow pebbles I’ve picked up in hope over many years. My little piece of amber has been a starting point for lots of prints on paper and fabric. Here is some work in progress for this summer’s exhibition.
Verity Franklin
A daily walk with my dog has become an integral part of my creative practice. I am drawn to the marks made by and found in nature. I collect – a certain twig or stone will find itself in my pocket to be taken home. The knot lay on my route, discarded, no longer needed – something made me pocket it. It’s nothing special, it’s ordinary and could have easily been overlooked. However knots are (k)not ordinary! Knots have been used as communication systems, record keeping, measurement, they often hold deep symbolic significance and are frequently used in talisman; they are used to join, secure, heal…..there is even a “Theory of knots”, or why everything tangles. This knot and subsequent research has influenced and inspired my work for this TAGS Summer exhibition and beyond.