Whatever Floats...at the National Needlework Archive

Yesterday Jane, Mavis and I hung the work from the Whatever Floats Your Boat exhibition. This is the work done by members of the Thames Valley Contemporary Textile group inspired by the artefacts in the Slough Museum and by Slough itself. You may recall hearing about the exhibition when it was originally at Slough and then in Bracknell last Winter.

Now it is at the National Needlework Archive. The exhibition will be open from today - 19 Sept. - to the 26th October. If you are interested, there are also 2 workshops connected with the exhibition. Information can be found on the workshop page of the NNA website. Scroll down to Saturday 6th October and Friday 26th October.

There is opportunity to see "The Country Wife". (For a small fee). A textile mural designed by Constance Howard and made by her and some of her students at Goldsmiths College for the Country Pavilion at the Festival of Britain in 1951. The work is being meticulously restored by Volunteers at the NNA.

The National Needlework Archive has large room with walls that can be repositioned for gallery space. Here are a few photos of how the work has been arranged. We hadn't so many plinths this time, but made good use of the glass cabinets.

The spot lighting makes elements of the work stand out in ways that wasn't noticable in the other venues. You can see more of the texture and embellishment on the various pieces.

The Venue isn't the easiest to get to, but worth it. They even have a tea room! Check out the website to see if it is open before you go. The Building is called the Old Textile Chapel...it used to be the chapel for the Greenham Common Base.