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Tracy Chevalier joins forces with charity to help prisoners build their self-esteem and hope “It was a challenge. I had just joined Fine Cell Work. Caroline, the volunteer teacher, asked me to do a square for the quilt and explained what it was about. She said what do you guys dream about when in prison. I said to be honest I don’t dream any more. I haven’t dreamed for years. To me prison is all about madness and chaos and tattoos. Caroline saw my tattoos and said we haven’t got one of those on the quilt. To me tattoos and people are very similar. It tells a story of a time and a place, it’s a permanent marker. It’s like me on this earth. ” – Prisoner partaking in the Sleep Quilt project “Prisoners may initially agree to work with Fine Cell Work because they will be paid, but most of them get far more out of the experience than money … Many inmates suffer from low self-esteem. They have never made anything constructive or beautiful before, and have never been praised. Doing so is like...

A new exhibition at Rheged, Cumbria’s foremost arts centre, supported by Arts Council England, will challenge perceptions of quilt making this spring, revealing a strong and vibrant contemporary craft form. New Quilting , an exclusive exhibition at Rheged, will reveal the new face of contemporary quilting, an art form now just as likely to be found hanging on a gallery wall or urban loft apartment as it is in a rural farmhouse. Quilts by  over 30 national and Cumbrian makers  have been selected for their craftsmanship and design, colour and innovation. The unique story behind each piece will also be told in the exhibition, either through accompanying sketches and material revealing how each quilt came to be, or through the storytelling ability of the quilt itself. Alicia Merrett: The Island John Stokes, Arts Manager at Rheged, said “Quilting has been part of the needlework tradition in Europe since the fifth century and our exhibition celebrates those continuing the tradition ...

Illustration: Annie Taylor. Fucketyfucketyfuckfuckfuck Most textile disciplines have been around for countless generations. They have a long history of relevance and tradition, they also have a long history of being connectors of individuals, groups and communities, very often using innovation, and subversion. Embroidery is a textile discipline in particular that has had more than its fair share of relevance, continually reinventing itself within different contemporary eras, with each successive generation finding the means to reinvent, or at least add towards, the strong tradition that it has as part of its history. Illustration: Alison Fizgerald Lucas. Beaver There is always a risk that if a discipline does not reflect the contemporary generation that uses it, at least in part, then its fate could well be to become fossilised within its own history, within its own tradition. This is not to say that all practitioners have to reflect the society that they find themselves in, but as lon...

Illustration: Dennis Potter. Big Boro Japan and Japanese culture has both fascinated and inspired creative individuals across the planet for generations. The defined nature of Japanese culture, both in the visual and in the conceptual, lends itself to a broad interpretation and reinterpretation by artists from a range of backgrounds and disciplines. The artist Dennis Potter is inspired by a number of different elements of Japanese, and East Asian culture. He has travelled and lived in a number of environments through East Asia, and has been correspondingly influenced within his creative work by those environments. Illustration: Dennis Potter. Big Boro , detail One specifically Japanese inspired creative theme that Dennis has used in his work, is that of the kimono, more specifically the hakui, which is a kimono worn by Buddhist pilgrims who circumambulate the Japanese island of Shikoku. This specific and simple garment works as a metaphor for experience and memory, because it is inscri...