seam collective is delighted to present the final exhibition of our A Visible THREAD tour at the wonderful Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton, Devon!

‘We are thrilled to host A VISIBLE THREAD as the final venue of its tour. We have followed the exhibition with interest over the last two years and enjoyed watching it grow and evolve at each venue. It is a particularly vibrant exhibition; we love the colour, techniques and artistic experimentation. Our visitors will love interacting with the pieces, especially Lou Baker’s work, which you can stroke, hug and rearrange. Don’t miss the opportunity to see this exhibition for the last time.‘
Gemma Girvan, Gallery Manager and Curator, Thelma Hulbert Gallery

The exhibition opened on Saturday 20 August 2024, when we had a fabulous opening event to mark the beginning of the show. Seven seam members were able to be there, which was wonderful, and we had many lovely visitors and lots of lively conversations about the work. Throughout the day, several seam artists demonstrated a range of textile techniques as well. It really felt like a celebration!

A reel of the opening demonstrations – many thanks to Lydia Needle, Penny Wheeler, Helen MacRitchie and Nina Gronw-Lewis for demonstrating such a range of brilliant textile techniques. Thanks too to Lydia for the video!

Earlier that week, a group of us had descended on the Thelma Hulbert Gallery to bring all the work to the gallery and to install the final iteration of our touring exhibition. We’re especially grateful to the curator at Thelma Hulbert, Gemma Girvan, and her wonderful team for all their help at every stage as we have planned this exhibition. It was definitely a big bonus to have the creative curatorial problem solving and skilled technical support from Gemma and Malcolm during set up as well! Thank you both for your generosity, patience and good humour.

It was a busy and fun week!

We think the exhibition at Thelma Hulbert Gallery is fabulous! It’s our biggest exhibition so far and each artist has made new work for the tour, focusing on the theme of A Visible THREAD. Some have made several new pieces. In fact, some of the group have taken the opportunity to develop new work specifically for this venue. We’ve been thrilled by the ideas, the range of techniques, the in-depth research, the focus on sustainability, the variety of materials used and the fascinating results of all our members’ hard work. We’re very proud of each of our members and what we have achieved as a collective through this touring exhibition. We hope you will be able to visit in person and that you’ll also be intrigued and delighted by what you see.

You’re also invited to make your mark by stitching into a naturally dyed cloth book, which has been made by the seam artists.

Maybe quite controversially, you’re offered the opportunity to touch some of the artworks. How does it feel to lift up Lydia’s thought provoking, weighty stitched cubes or to cuddle my quirky, body-like pink sculptures? You’re also invited to make your mark by stitching into a naturally dyed cloth book, which has been made by the seam artists. There’s a sampler book which you can handle too. Each page has been made by a different artist. I wonder if you can work out who made which page? You can also do some weaving of your own in one of the rooms upstairs, with all materials and tools provided, thanks to the gallery staff. It’s the perfect mellow activity for all ages.

There’s a range of beautiful items for sale in the gallery shop as well, each handmade by our members. Why not treat yourself or buy some presents? You’ll not only be supporting the seam artists but also the gallery.

If you can’t visit, make sure to follow us on Instagram @seam_collective, as we’ll be featuring each artist and some background to their work over the next few weeks.

An example of a recent post on @seam_collective’s brilliant Instagram account.

Some of the artists have also made short videos about their work in the exhibition:

Watch this video to find out more about the ideas, research and processes behind some of the work in the exhibition. Thanks again to Lydia Needle for her video editing skills.

We were delighted to receive this fabulous feedback about the exhibition at Thelma Hulbert Gallery last week:

‘The exhibition pieces … are thought provoking, profound, meaningful, enriching, exquisitely executed and aesthetically pleasing… It’s academic and profound not to mention beautiful and otherwise … There’s so much (previously unencountered) intricacy of detail and technical processes and concepts, it really needs two visits to contemplate, and reflect.’
Gillian Burbidge, local textile tutor

Experimentation and research has been an important part of the A Visible THREAD tour. We want our individual works, and the exhibition as a whole, to provoke thought and conversation. If you’d like more detail of the ideas and processes behind our individual work for A Visible THREAD, have a look at previous blog posts written by various seam members as the tour has progressed, and there are more to come!

We’d love to know what you think about the exhibition too, so please do let us know in the comments below or on Instagram @seam_collective.

One of the best things for me about setting up a seam exhibition is actually getting to spend time with at least some of the other seam artists. We meet up every month online, but there’s nothing like the smiles and hugs and ideas that germinate when we’re together in person. We’ve absolutely loved the opportunity to work together on our A Visible THREAD exhibition tour. Its enabled us all to develop our practices, to experiment and make exciting new works. We’re very grateful to Arts Council England for funding us and to each of our venues for hosting us.

Our final A Visible THREAD exhibition is open Tuesday – Saturday, 10-5 at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Honiton until 31 August. It really does feel like a grand finale!

And watch this space for news of seam collective’s next exciting project in 2025!

Lou Baker