Coming Soon…

It’s that time of year and we’re planning what the next few months hold in store for us. We’re thrilled to be back at the V&A teaching our ‘Natural Dyeing: A Heritage of Colour‘ textile course which runs from the 22nd – 26th of July. V&A Members can book tickets now and general booking opens to everyone from 10.00 GMT on Monday 12 February.

As well as learning about different types of natural dyes and best practice in hands on workshops over the five days, the course includes a private gallery tour with V&A curator Susan North looking at pre-1800 fashion & textiles in the collection and a talk on India’s natural dyes and their impact on global fashion with V&A curator Avalon Fotheringham. You can read more about Avalon’s research into this fascinating subject in her post Inspired to Make. You can read all about the week’s itinerary and see more images from October’s course in the journal post. We had such a wonderful time teaching in October and we are delighted to have been asked back.

‘The two tutors, Ross and Jonny, were excellent! They were engaging, well prepared, organised and delivered an action packed course in which they shared their knowledge and gave a lot of hands on practice‘ Previous Course students’ feedback

The course was quite literally the best textile course I have ever participated in. I had not appreciated in advance just how complex the information was but Ross and Jonny broke it down at every stage into manageable chunks.

We are also really pleased to have a new home for moderneccentrics. We are taking part in the Florence Trust residency scheme and have a studio at their new base in Holy Trinity Church, Cloudsley Square, Islington. A short walk from Angel station on the Northern Line, the church is Grade II* , built 1826-9 to the design of Sir Charles Barry.

We will be running a series of workshops throughout the year, some in association with the Trust so watch for further updates here or on our moderneccentrics social media accounts. We will also be running events during Stitch Festival (21-24 March) at the Business Design Centre, minutes from the studio. We hope to see you soon!

New Year, New Developments

January is always a grey and dreary month but it’s also a good time to think about the year ahead. Our first workshop is for the London Business School Student Association on Saturday and Ross is delivering Handmade Experimental Brushes and Botanical Inks at Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft on the 4th March. This is part of a series of workshops to coincide with Shōji Hamada: A Japanese Potter in Ditchling, which includes Keith Brymer-Jones: Boy in a China Shop: Life, Clay and Everything and Naoko Abe: ‘Cherry’ Ingram, The Englishman Who Saved Japan’s Blossoms. We are also hoping to delver another series of workshops with The Duke of Cambridge and the Florence Trust with other exciting developments coming later in the year.

Artefact Book

Please get in touch to order our titles ‘Still Life‘, documenting our show at the Leicester Contemporary, and ‘Artefact‘, looking at Ross’ ongoing Artefact series. Each title is available at £18 including uk postage and packaging, moderneccentrics@gmail.com

Covering the Artefact series, which started in 2015, the work currently consists of four groupings – Nest, Adornment, Implements and Receptacles, and the 60 page book documents its ongoing development. The book features Jonny’s photographs of these beautiful and sometimes fragile pieces, and below is my introduction to this work, originally written originally for Ross’ solo show at the Packington Gallery in 2019.

Text and images © moderneccentrics

Still Life Book

Please get in touch to order our titles ‘Still Life‘, documenting our show at the Leicester Contemporary, and ‘Artefact‘, looking at Ross’ ongoing Artefact series. Each title is available at £18 including uk postage and packaging, moderneccentrics@gmail.com

‘Still Life’ documents our first show together as moderneccentrics in November 2021. The show opened on the Friday night and had over 300 visitors by close of day on the first Sunday. The space was incredible and Steve Allbutt and Yuka Namekawa were so supportive and helpful throughout the process. Their curation of the exhibition brought together new works by Ross and Jonny as well as bringing together ‘Belief’ and ‘Artefact’ for the first time. You can see the cover and a selection of pages below.

Text and images © moderneccentrics