Higham Ferrers hosts authors and artists with a repeat show already in the pipeline
Higham Ferrers’s medieval Chichele College could not have been a more fitting venue for the centuries-old craft of spinning and weaving as showcased in a recent exhibition.
Carol Fitzgerald, chairman of the Chichele College Management Committee, a branch of Higham Ferrers Tourism, said: “The college is just so suitable for this type of event. And I just love bringing the college to life.”
Carol was referring to a unique textile art exhibition on the college’s mezzanine floor, part of a well-attended two-day ‘Brush Meets Pen’ show hosted by Higham Ferrers Tourism, where nine authors and six artists held court and displayed their work.
The textile art exhibition on the mezzanine floor was curated by weaver and fibre artist, Michaela Cordes, who spent endless hours spinning and weaving shawls, wall hangings and fashioning hand-made wool sculptures for the show.
With collectors of her unique work based around the world, it was the first time she had exhibited in Higham Ferrers since 2019.
She had even imagined an entire story for the show, creating and designing every aspect of The Quiet Women display which presented ‘textiles for a slower, deeper, more meaningful way of living.’
Her imagined characters – such as Edith the weaver – had left the rat race for the countryside. Michaela had also written a little book for the exhibition, detailing how the women had opted to live a quieter life.
She told visitors how spinning can take up to eight hours of work and that it can take some 40 hours to make one item, such as a shawl. She showed visitors wool made from Indian rose petals and Egyptian lotus fibres.
Downstairs, in the main exhibition hall, the colourful work of Anna Yardley, known as ‘the sea artist’, was proving popular with visitors in landlocked Higham Ferrers.
She said: “You could say I am a quirky artist. I do things from a different angle.
“I put a bit of feeling and movement into a painting. I like to see movement in the waves and sky.”
Her unique, hand-made contemporary paint work and collages appear on prints, cards, coasters, calendars and cushions and other gifts.
Exhibition organiser Richard Wilding said it was hoped to have another ‘Brush Meets Pen’ show at Chichele College next June, when, hopefully, the show would be extended into the college grounds enabling more authors and artists to take part.
Art and heritage exhibitions are held at Chichele College on the last weekend of the month from April to October and entry is always free.