Crtl/Shift – Textile Masterclass
Facilitated by Richard McVetis and Vanessa Rolf
A partnership between MAC Birmingham and Craftspace
Textiles workshop (Photo: Danielle Laurent)
In this workshop participants explored the potential of simple stitch techniques and learned how to speak through them in their own unique way to push their practice and artistic identity forward.
The MAC Fellowship has given me so many learning opportunities. We have covered how to approach galleries, selling online, using social media and many other helpful and useful areas. But one of the special perks of our MAC Fellowship is the Masterclasses with other practicing artists. Each artist we have met has selflessly shared their techniques and process along with encouragement and inspiration.
Such was the case with our textile masterclass with Richard McVetis and Vanessa Rolf. It was so inspiring to see how personal their work was and how they use fabric and thread to express themselves. Vanessa shared a wonderful story of how her markmaking language had originated from the objects her grandfather had saved from his time in WWII. Equally fascinating was Richard’s personal journey from part-time to full-time maker and how his work has come full circle.
I always feel so grateful and humble when artists share their techniques and how they work. Often their processes are deeply personal and a developed over a long period of time. But one of the great things about making is that we always seem to appear in our own work. This was evident after comparing the samples of the 5 fellows. Although we had all sat through the same masterclass, each of work was unique to us.
Danielle Laurent
