A Visible THREAD, Black Swan Arts, Frome

16 September – 29 October 2023

Black Swan Arts, 2 Bridge St, Frome, BA11 1BB

Some of team seam at the ‘Meet the Artists’ event at Black Swan Arts
l-r Alice Marie Archer, Nicola Turner, Nina Gronw Lewis, Angie Parker, Lou Baker, Oly Bliss, Lydia Needle

‘Fab exhibition starting lots of conversations. Thanks!’

This was the second iteration of seam collective’s A Visible THREAD, as part of our Arts Council-funded exhibition tour. The exhibiting artists were: Alice Marie Archer, Angie Parker, Desiree Jeans, Helen MacRitchie, Jane Colquhoun, Joy Merron, Julie Heaton, Leah Hislop, Lou Baker, Lydia Needle, Nicola Turner, Nina Gronw-Lewis, Oly Bliss and the late Dr. Linda Row.

‘Beautiful and thought-provoking exhibition.’

‘Fantastic! So joyful and love that some of the works can be touched. Really shows the breadth and range of textiles as an art medium. Thank you.’

‘I love this! Textiles as art and so tactile…Very informative and moving.’

Reviews

We’re grateful to local writer, Helen Stay, for writing this great review of the exhibition:

‘A most inspiring exhibition. I’m currently using up my stash and you’ve given me lots of ideas. Thank you!’

‘Great to see the work in person. Touching several pieces is a way to experience textiles that is too often denied!’

Please touch!

Lydia Needle’s thought-provoking, touchable installation about textile waste was part of this exhibition too:

Wonderfully creative interaction with Lydia Needle’s ‘Legacy’

Participation

Meet the artists

We had a delightful ‘Meet the Artists’ event on Saturday 16 September, 10-12, where some of the artists talked about their work.

Text + textiles…

We were delighted that a local group of poets, ‘Words at the Black Swan’, who meet regularly at Black Swan Arts to respond to the exhibitions there, wrote several poems about some of the art works in our exhibition. Many thanks to all the poets!

Read more about our exhibition at Black Swan Arts in our blog post, A Visible THREAD comes to Frome

You can also find out more about our research behind seam‘s A Visible THREAD exhibition tour in Making thread visible, how it started as a research residency in Spring 2022, and what we got up to during our residency on our blog.