You may remember that a couple of posts ago, I talked about the exhibitions at 'Textiles in Focus' held at Cottenham in February. Specifically, I posted a photograph of the sales table comprising work of the Facets group of textile artists. I was later contacted by Rhona of Facets, who has kindly sent me photographs of the work that they had displayed at the Exhibition. I did take some photographs myself, but unfortunately, due to lighting, (oh, ok then, my ineptitude as a photographer!) they didn't really turn out well enough to include here, so my thanks to Rhona for supplying these. Facets will be holding their own exhibition within the next 12 months, so I will let you know more details when we have them. Meanwhile, here are the aforementioned photos ....

Beautiful and varied work, I'm sure you'll agree. Thanks again Rhona.

Meanwhile, if anyone else out there would like us to mention their exhibitions, or send us photographs of their work (come on, don't be shy!) please contact us via the website at http://www.artvango.co.uk/

Upcoming workshops

Just a quick post to remind you of some of the great workshops we have lined up in the near future - some of them are fully booked already, but amongst those which still have some vacancies include the following:-

Creative Metal Clay with Sarah Lamb on Friday 13th March. Create objects in silver by simply modelling the metal clay using non-traditional jewellery methods. Sarah has great experience using this revolutionary silver clay, and it will be possible to create small pieces of jewellery by the end of the day. £49 (inc £20 materials charge)

Embellish to Stitch - a two day workshop by Pauline Verrinder on Wed 28th and Thurs 29th May - this has proved very popular in the past with new owners of Embellisher machines to help them comes to grips with all the wonderful work that can be produced by these machines. So if you've got one that you haven't fully explored, this is the course for you. Previous classes have been oversubscribed - so get in quick! £57 (inc £3.00 materials charge)

Another two day workshop of interest to those of you with Embellishers (but not exclusively) is

It's a Wrap! by Christine Benson on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th May. Using silk fibres and machine lace you will produce beautiful surfaces for quilting and embroidery from which you can go on to create a distinctive and unique scarf. £70 (inc £6.00 materials charge)

Then we have workshops being run by no less than three artists currently exhibiting with the Prism group at the Mall Galleries in London:

Machines Textures by Gina Ferrari on Friday 3rd April.

This is a machine embroidery workshop where you will learn more techniques for creating rich textures and combine them to produce a landscape style embroidery. This will develop techniques from a previous class but is also suitable for beginners, although students will need to be familiar with their machines. £32 (inc £2 materials charge

Layers in the Landscape - a Textile Approach by Amanda Hislop over the weekend of Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th April.

Taking the landscape as inspiration, explore the effects of layering papers, threads and found materials to form surfaces for stitch. Add texture and overlay washes of colour. Cut back and reveal textile and image, fragment and reassemblage. Explore the potential of this flexible method. £82 (inc £8.00 materials charge)

Colour and Paper - What If??! a three day workshop from Ruth Issett on Wednesday 22nd to Friday 24th April.

Explore the possibilities of working with colour and paper - build paper surfaces, add print, plus a variety of mixed media such as gesso, wax resists and acruylic mediums to give uniquely colourful finishes. A course for those who like to experiment and wish to expand and develop their knowledge with colour on paper. £115 (inc £8.00 materials charge)

To book a course, for more information about these and other courses, or to request a copy of the workshop programme, please call us at the shop on 01438 814946 or email us via our website