Archive Response · Exhibition

Copper
Trace

A research and practice response to a historical textile sample at the Crafts Study Centre — woven from reclaimed copper wire and copper-dyed Fibrelab fabric on a hand-built wooden loom.

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Archive &
making
in dialogue.

WorkCopper Trace

ExhibitionDialogues in Making

VenueCrafts Study Centre

Dates06 May 2026 – 28 May 2026

TypeArchive Response · MA Practice

The Crafts Study Centre visit offered an opportunity to work with the archive as both a research resource and a source of creative response. The experience felt research-led and practice-led, encouraging close observation, critical reflection, and a direct making response to a historical textile sample.

For my practice, it was especially valuable in showing how archives can support new work by linking technique, structure, and experimentation across different craft disciplines.

I selected a textile sample from the workshops of Ethel Mairet because it resonated strongly with my own practice through its texture, materiality, and visible process. Its open weave, tactile surface, layered fibres, and contrast between soft neutral tones and vivid red accents gave it a strong hand-made presence.

In response to the piece, I developed a composition that brought recycled material into dialogue with the archive object's woven qualities — creating a work that translated the object's openness and layered construction into a more spatial textile form.

The Archive Object

Ethel Mairet — a textile sample

Ethel Mairet was an influential British weaver, dyer, and teacher associated with the Arts and Crafts movement, whose practice emphasised honesty of material, hand processes, and the expressive potential of texture, structure, and colour.

Open Weave Structure

The loose, breathable weave created a sense of spatial openness — structure visible as both form and method.

Tactile Surface & Layered Fibres

Fibres built up in layers gave the sample a depth that rewarded touch as much as sight — making process visible.

Neutral Tones & Red Accents

Soft, restrained neutrals punctuated by vivid red — a balance of restraint and spontaneous colour decision.

Evidence of Making

Tactile irregularity and visible hand work gave the piece a strong hand-made presence — imperfection as honesty.

Making Response

Materials in
conversation.

Using copper wire recovered from discarded electrical cables, shredded Fibrelab fabric dyed with copper — woven together on an open wooden loom frame that I made myself — I created a work that translated the object's openness and layered construction into a more spatial textile form.

Rather than copying the original, my response focused on interpreting what drew me to it most: its balance of restraint and spontaneity, its tactile irregularity, and its visible evidence of making.

The copper wire connects directly to the material language of TechTaar — reclaimed from discarded electrical cables and given new purpose within a textile context. The Fibrelab fabric, dyed with copper, brought a second layer of material dialogue: between soft fibre and hard metal, between neutral ground and the warmth of copper oxide.

The self-built loom frame shaped the spatial quality of the final work — its openness echoing the looseness of the Mairet sample, its construction visible and intentional. The result is a textile that carries both the archive's memory and the maker's present moment.