Join us for the opening of Craft Skills: Generation to Generation, and meet the artists involved in putting the exhibition together, including Alison Baxter, Mona Craven, Louise Anderson and curator Loucia Manopoulou.

The exhibition is the culmination of textile workshops ran in October 2025 at the CSC where participants learned from the artists techniques of knotting, patchwork and embroidery, and explored the importance of intergenerational connections and the role textile crafts play in enriching the lives of all involved. There will be interactive exhibits as part of the exhibition, as well as selections from the Crafts Study Centre textile collections.

BOOK HERE

Join a panel of artists who feature in the Crafts Study Centre exhibition Black Atlantic Makers: Conversations to discuss the ideas, narratives and motivations behind the work on show.  Chaired by exhibition co-curators Paula Ogun Hector, founder of the Tapestry of Black Britons and Dr Stephen Knott, Director of the Crafts Study Centre, the event provides a chance to explore the intergenerational connections and material dialogues between Black makers that are central to the exhibition. Participating artists include wood artist Donald Baugh, sculptor Marcia Bennett Male, lettering artist Errol Donald, designer Angela Ford of Studio Raw Origins, weaver Makeba Lewis and ceramic artist Bisila Noha.

Event accompanies Black Atlantic Makers: Conversations at the Crafts Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham.

TO BOOK CLICK HERE

Join CSC Director Stephen Knott for a tour of Black Atlantic Makers: Conversations. The tour provides a chance to hear more about the partnership between the Crafts Study Centre and the Tapestry of Black Britons project, the rationale behind the decisions made in exhibiting work and the deeper meanings behind the pairings and relationships in the show.

BOOK HERE

Rose Sinclair, MBE, Reader in Design Education, Goldsmiths, University of London

The work of Althea McNish is instantly recognisable for its sheer brilliance in the use of colour. But it goes far beyond that, with each design also telling a story, whether linked to her homeland of Trinidad or floral decorations or even the simple onion. In this presentation using items from Crafts Study Centre archive and McNish textiles from my own collection I discuss how McNish takes the viewer on a journey of her imagination through her use of colour and pattern.

Event accompanies Black Atlantic Makers: Conversationsat the Crafts Study Centre, on until 23 May 2026.

BOOK HERE

UCA STUDENTS/STAFF BOOK HERE

A ROAD-TRIP WITH CLAY AT THE WHEEL

In this lecture Sara Flynn will share her experiences, the challenges, key people, places, choices, successes, failures and curve-ball opportunities that have come her way throughout a deeply satisfying life with clay. Integral to this journey is Sara’s passion for her chosen material – porcelain; a hunger to learn; and a commitment to the sculptural potential of the ceramic vessel as expressed through her treatment of colour, form, line, contours and edges.

Sara Flynn is based in Cork, Ireland, the city where she was born and then educated (at the Crawford College of Art & Design). Her career began in 1999 producing small-scale functional pots, a practice that has since developed into a focus on one-off sculptural decorative vessels in porcelain. Her work is held in many major national and international collections. She is represented by Erskine, Hall & Coe, Mayfair, London.

The Emmanuel Cooper Memorial Lecture is presented by the Crafts Study Centre in partnership with 318 Ceramics and the Royal College of Art to celebrate the life and work of renowned potter Emmanuel Cooper. The lecture series is supported by State Ceramics.

BOOK HERE

Dr Linda Brassington in conversation with Lesley Millar MBE, Professor Emerita Textile Culture UCA and Dr Stephen Knott, Director of the Crafts Study Centre.

PART OF FARNHAM LITERARY FESTIVAL

In her new book, Indigo and Resist Dyeing: Performance, Metaphor and Materiality in Contemporary Cloth, textile artist and researcher Linda Brassington examines the practices and meanings of this global heritage craft, taking us through workshops, studios and dye rooms from England to Central Europe and Japan. Together, the panel will explore the author’s writings and her move from skills and knowledge to language and lyrical accounts, revealing sensory spaces of lived experience with material, colour and cloth.

BOOK HERE

Join us in celebrating the launch of Black Atlantic Makers: Conversations.

At the centre of this exhibition is be the multi-panel, woven and embroidered Tapestry of Black Britons. The large textile work will be displayed alongside pieces by Black makers represented within the four material areas of the Crafts Study Centre’s collections - ceramics, wood, textiles and calligraphy - and loans from other public and private collections. Tapestry of Black Britons, an evolving artwork, is a collaborative, craft-centred initiative celebrating and documenting little-known strands of British history through textile art. A new panel, African Romans by Kofi Alvin, will premiere at this exhibition.

Free, but booking essential.

CLICK HERE TO BOOK

In January 2026 the work Kettles and Elements by textile artist Justine Randall will be displayed at the Crafts Study Centre Foyer. At the same time, a series of her new works are being displayed at the New Art Centre, East Winterslow, Wiltshire in Night Sky Tapestries.

To mark this occasion the two venues are collaborating on a day-long event at The New Art Centre. Included is a two-hour tour of the Roche Court Sculpture Park, and Galleries, entry to Randall’s exhibition, and a Q & A session with Justine Randall in the afternoon, chaired by Crafts Study Centre Director Stephen Knott.

The cost is £20 and includes tea/coffee (lunch not provided). To find out more information and book your place follow this link to the New Art Centre website.

Join us for a publication launch and reception accompanying Affinities: Helen Carnac and David Gates. Affinities isan exhibition about the relationship between local environment, rural contexts, and studio practice and the points of connection, correspondence, and analogy that have emerged between Helen and David’s work over the last twenty years.

A publication to mark the exhibition has been produced during the exhibition’s run and will include essays in response to the exhibition’s themes by the artists, Dr. Paul Harper, and the Director of the Crafts Study Centre, Stephen Knott.

Free, but booking through Eventbrite essential

More information about the artists can be found below.

Helen Carnac

David Gates

Join Helen Carnac and David Gates as they talk about the current exhibition Affinities: Helen Carnac and David Gates with CSC Director, Stephen Knott. The online discussion will touch on themes of the exhibition which includes how rooted Helen and David’s work is within their local environment and the points of connection, correspondence, and analogy that have emerged by working alongside each other over the last twenty years.

First shown at Make Hauser and Wirth in Bruton, Somerset in 2023, this second iteration of Affinities sees the artists further investigate how their practice is embedded in routines of daily life, rural environments and seasonal change, by exploring papers within the Crafts Study Centre's archives. Helen and David have selected documents and artefacts which connect to their own work and concerns. These include lists of wild plants from the garden diaries of the printmaker Robin Tanner; images of the Quantock Weavers; and working samples and notes made by the weaver Ethel Mairet.

SIGN UP TO THE TEAMS WEBINAR HERE.

Organised by Outside In, this conversational and creative workshop led by artist Charlie Jenkins will be held on 12 December, 2-4pm at the Crafts Study Centre.

Create a story about what you see. The whole workshop process will get you thinking about what you can’t see! Using oil pastels to explore drawing works from the Crafts Study Centre’s collection, we will be thinking deeply about what has taken place with each piece and creating a mash up of all we have talked about with a magnificent end piece. 

Charlie Jenkins is an artist from south London, who is trying to make sense of this world by creating as much art as he possibly can. He does a lot of art workshops, thanks to learning how to carry one out with Outside In’s Step Up course! Paint throwing, mess and words are just part of his work. Charlie loves art as it helps him communicate to a world not set for artists. 

You can book your place on this workshop by emailing: charlotte.graham-spouge@outsidein.org.uk.

Places are limited and will be given on a first come first served basis. If you need to cancel at any time, please let us know so we can offer the place to another artist.  

Image: Charlie Jenkins at Boots Headquarters

Join CSC Director Stephen Knott for a tour of Affinities: Helen Carnac and David Gates. The tour provides a chance to explore Helen and David's responses to the Crafts Study Centre archive and how their own work responds to the materiality, seasonal change and variety of their local environment.

For this exhibition Helen and David examine the collapsed space between the domestic and the professional that is common to studio practice but is often overlooked. Devotion to craft often demands establishing affinities with the other stuff of life, particularly in rural contexts. Looking at the work close up in the space reveals these close links to everyday repair, maintenance, tending to gardens and vegetable beds, and creating new habitats.

BOOK HERE

In this talk organised in partnership with Outside In, Stephen Knott, Director of the Crafts Study Centre and Greta Bertram Curator of Collections, will introduce the collection, how it came about and share some of the stories and uses of the material, accessing the archives and works, and current priorities.

To book, please go to the Outside/In event page.

Outside In provides a platform for artists who encounter significant barriers to the art world due to health, disability, social circumstance, or isolation.

Outside In provides a digital platform for artists to show their work and three programmes of activity: artist development, exhibitions, and training. Outside In aims to create a fairer art world by supporting artists, creating opportunities, and influencing arts organisations.

Join Professor Yoshikuni Yanagi and Setsuko Nitta for an exploration of the intricate methods and history of Okinawan weaving. Okinawa is a Japanese island in the South China Sea that since the fifteenth century has cultivated a unique artistic culture including vibrant textiles that draw from the island’s tropical environment.

Nitta will introduce Okinawan textiles including its history, how the textile tradition is preserved in present day Japan and how Okinawan textiles have ended up in collections across Europe, a result of the intense Battle of Okinawa that took place during World War II. Yanagi will explain the specifics of Okinawan weaving that is based on three main types of kasuri(ikat) and how the technique has travelled beyond the island, to mainland Japan and beyond. He will also present works that he has made using the kasuri weaving technique.

BOOK HERE

The talk coincides with Yanagi’s research trip to the UK where he is exploring collections at the V&A Museum and the Pitt Rivers in Oxford.

 We are grateful to the Farnham Town Council for providing the venue for this event.

WORKSHOP 3: Cross stitched and creative embroidery

TUTOR: Louise Renae Anderson

Third of three inter-active workshops on heritage textile crafting skills. This workshop focuses on macramé and tatting and knotted lace techniques to create domestic items.

As tutors, we bring our knowledge and practice of macramé and tatting, patchworking, and embroidery stitching to these hands-on workshop activities. In this way we all share, learn and celebrate intergenerational relationships. Tutors will discuss the cultural significance of preserving and developing these textile skills and techniques and will share the story of how they learnt these crafts from their elders. Participants will be invited to share a skill they learned from their elders with the group. Our shared discussion is the starting point for making work, with plenty of time to try out techniques demonstrated by the lead tutor, and develop and practice the familiar or new techniques explored during the session.

What you need to prepare in advance and bring with you.

• Any textile work you have made or has been made by your grandmothers or elders to discuss.

• Think about the textile-skills or textile things inherited from your grandmother or elder.

• Bring along a very short paragraph (approx. 50 words) describing the above, or describe a textile technique you would like a twenty-first century generation to learn.

Materials and equipment supplied.

The intention is to showcase work produced in the workshop, and subsequent work that explores and develops new and old textile-skills, alongside each participant’s story in an exhibition at the Crafts Study Centre in 2026. The exhibition aims to value and celebrate the intangible cultural heritage of textile crafting skills and the significance of intergenerational relationships.

BOOK HERE

WORKSHOP 2: Patchworking shapes together

TUTOR: Mona Craven

Second of three inter-active workshops on heritage textile crafting skills. This workshop focuses on patchwork techniques – how to piece together small pieces of fabric to create new cloth.

As tutors, we bring our knowledge and practice of macramé and tatting, patchworking, and embroidery stitching to these hands-on workshop activities. In this way we all share, learn and celebrate intergenerational relationships. Tutors will discuss the cultural significance of preserving and developing these textile skills and techniques and will share the story of how they learnt these crafts from their elders. Participants will be invited to share a skill they learned from their elders with the group. Our shared discussion is the starting point for making work, with plenty of time to try out techniques demonstrated by the lead tutor, and develop and practice the familiar or new techniques explored during the session.

What you need to prepare in advance and bring with you.

• Any textile work you have made or has been made by your grandmothers or elders to discuss.

• Think about the textile-skills or textile things inherited from your grandmother or elder.

• Bring along a very short paragraph (approx. 50 words) describing the above, or describe a textile technique you would like a twenty-first century generation to learn.

Materials and equipment supplied.

The intention is to showcase work produced in the workshop, and subsequent work that explores and develops new and old textile-skills, alongside each participant’s story in an exhibition at the Crafts Study Centre in 2026. The exhibition aims to value and celebrate the intangible cultural heritage of textile crafting skills and the significance of intergenerational relationships.

BOOK HERE

Join Rebecca Skeels, Course Director at Birmingham City University’s School of Jewellery in discussion with Dr Stephen Knott, Director of the Crafts Study Centre as they compare Farnham, England’s first World Craft Town with Birmingham Jewellery Quarter, the most recent one. Rebecca will share her plans for the Jewellery Quarter, and reflect on how far Farnham Craft Town has come on our fifth anniversary.

BOOK HERE

WORKSHOP 1: Macrame, tatting and lacemaking (knotting)

TUTOR: Alison Baxter

First of three inter-active workshops on heritage textile crafting skills. This workshop focuses on macramé and tatting and knotted lace techniques to create domestic items.

As tutors, we bring our knowledge and practice of macramé and tatting, patchworking, and embroidery stitching to these hands-on workshop activities. In this way we all share, learn and celebrate intergenerational relationships. Tutors will discuss the cultural significance of preserving and developing these textile skills and techniques and will share the story of how they learnt these crafts from their elders. Participants will be invited to share a skill they learned from their elders with the group. Our shared discussion is the starting point for making work, with plenty of time to try out techniques demonstrated by the lead tutor, and develop and practice the familiar or new techniques explored during the session.

What you need to prepare in advance and bring with you.

• Any textile work you have made or has been made by your grandmothers or elders to discuss.

• Think about the textile-skills or textile things inherited from your grandmother or elder.

• Bring along a very short paragraph (approx. 50 words) describing the above, or describe a textile technique you would like a twenty-first century generation to learn.

Materials and equipment supplied.

The intention is to showcase work produced in the workshop, and subsequent work that explores and develops new and old textile-skills, alongside each participant’s story in an exhibition at the Crafts Study Centre in 2026. The exhibition aims to value and celebrate the intangible cultural heritage of textile crafting skills and the significance of intergenerational relationships.

BOOK HERE

This lecture reflects on the remarkable life and artistic legacy of Ladi Dosei Kwali (1925–1984), Nigeria’s most celebrated potter, whose mastery of Indigenous Gbari hand-building techniques shaped a pioneering transnational ceramic practice. Drawing on oral histories, archival photographs, and field research in Kwali and Suleja, Dr Jareh Das explores how Kwali’s waterpots, once everyday vessels, became icons of artistic innovation and cultural heritage in Nigeria and beyond. The talk situates Kwali’s hybrid practice within the shifting landscapes of British colonial craft training, postcolonial modernism, and the studio pottery movement, while raising key questions about how her legacy is remembered in Nigeria today. This lecture reconsiders Kwali not only as a master craftswoman but also as an artist of agency, innovation, and enduring resonance, whose story remains incomplete.

BOOK HERE.

Photo: Ladi Kwali demonstration in the US, 1972. From the archive of Kwali family, Suleja. Image courtesy of Andrew Esiebo.

As part of Make your Mark the opening event of Farnham Craft Month, the Crafts Study Centre is hosting a discussion between one of the best-known calligraphers in the UK and Professor in Design at the University of Sunderland, Ewan Clayton, and Rosalind Wyatt an artist who originally trained in calligraphy, but has moved on to explore lettering and writing in multiple contexts from embroidery, film, design and fashion. The conversation will touch on writing across different materials, how material shapes communication, the mobilisation of the body when writing, and the role of imagination in mark making.

Ewan Clayton – the nation’s foremost calligrapher and author of The Golden Thread: The Story of Writing (2013). He has also designed the Royal Cypher for the Queen Consort and was a key adviser to the British Library’s exhibition Writing: Making your Mark (2019). https://www.ewanclayton.co.uk/about

Rosalind Wyatt – visual artist with a multi-disciplinary practice that has its roots in the art of the hand. Wyatt has developed an embroidery practice ‘writing with a needle’ that involves translating other peoples’ handwriting into stitch. She has exhibited at the Sharjah Calligraphy Biennial, The New Craftsman in London, and is engaged in an ongoing project ‘The Stitch Lives of London’ – a line of garments embroidered in the words of the people who wore them. https://www.rosalindwyatt.com/

Chaired by Director of the Crafts Study Centre, Stephen Knott

Supported by the Irene Wellington Trust and the Society of Scribes and Illuminators

Part of Farnham Craft Month

Free, but booking essential. CLICK TO BOOK

Photograph: Ewan Clayton, Tranquillity, 2006. Crafts Study Centre, 2006.26.

The launch of Farnham Craft Town 2025 marks five years since Farnham achieved World Craft Town status. The day-long event celebrates the ecosystem of craft within the town and region and takes its theme from the Crafts Study Centre exhibition Fluidity and Inscription which focusses on lettering and mark-making.

As part of the event the Crafts Study Centre has organised demonstrations by the calligrapher Mary Noble and letter-cutter and stone carver Matt Loughlin, and will host a discussion between calligrapher and author of The Golden Thread: The Story of Writing Ewan Clayton and Rosalind Wyatt, a multi-disciplinary visual artist whose practice is rooted in the art of writing.

Alongside the CSC programme there will be family friendly drop-in workshops, have-a-go sessions, craft stalls, demonstrations, food and music.

In an increasingly digital age and with most people equipped with smartphones, communication feels easy. This event, alongside the exhibition, tells a different story: craftspeople devoted to exploring the affordances and expressive possibilities of writing and mark-making.

FULL EVENT DETAILS

This event is supported by the Society of Scribes and Illuminators and the Irene Wellington Educational Trust.

(Image: Mary Noble)

Free guided tour lasting one hour led by the Director including a behind the scenes viewing of selected objects drawn from the collections.

Spaces are limited. Book through the Heritage Open Days website. (Booking opens on 3 September 2025)

Part of the national Heritage Open Days taking place from 15 - 21 September.

The Crafts Study Centre, in partnership with West Horsley Place, is delighted to host a lunchtime talk by the internationally renowned Japanese textile artist Machiko Agano. She will be here in the UK to install her work in the exhibition Hear My Voice running at West Horsely Place from 4th August to 31st October 2025.

Hear My Voice has been curated by Crafts Study Centre Trustee Lesley Millar, Professor Emerita at UCA along with her colleague from Manchester Metropolitan University, Professor Alice Kettle. Lesley has worked with Machiko Agano on several occasions including the ground breaking exhibition Textural Space at Fabrica in Brighton in 2001. Machiko Agano has also exhibited in Japan, Korea, China, USA, Canada, Australia, Poland, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden etc. She is currently Professor at Kyoto City University.

For our lunchtime talk Machiko Agano will show and discuss the development of her work from the Lausanne Biennale of the 1970s to the present day. This is a rare opportunity to hear firsthand from one of the most important Japanese textile artists of her generation – a generation that has influenced textile art throughout the world.

Free, but booking essential. Click here to book.

Join artist and researcher Diana Taylor at the Crafts Study Centre Foyer to hear her discuss So Swift the Hours are Moving, 2021, that is on display until September.

The work makes use of a variety of found materials and remnants, including fabrics ripped out of Morris & Co. sample books and textiles inherited from her mother. Taylor will talk about the work, the series it is part of, as well as her recent research into William Morris for an forthcoming journal article. Free but booking essential.

Diana Taylor’s personal website.

The discussion with Diana will be followed by an introduction to the first floor gallery exhibition, Joy in the Detail: Small Work from the 62 Group of Textile Artists, including a chance to interact with works through the 62 Group’s handling collection.

Join us for the opening of Joy in the Detail: Small Work from the 62 Group of Textile Artists, an exhibition that demonstrates the variety and dynamic range of inventive and expressive work emerging from the artist-led organisation. Artists have responded to the brief to work at a limited scale with a sense of confidence and assertiveness, producing refreshing work that underlines small as an attribute within the structures and forms of textiles.

More information about the 62 Group can be found here.

Free, but booking through Eventbrite essential

Join Bridget Harvey and Maiko Tsutsumi as they discuss the exhibition Wholeness Remnants Fragments with Crafts Study Centre Director, Stephen Knott. The exhibition reflects the changing narratives and landscapes of repair, combining parts of the CSC’s collection with objects and texts made and collated by Tsutsumi and Harvey.

The discussion will explore how the gallery has become part of an ongoing conversation between the artists around repair and how interaction with the CSC collections has prompted further questions about our interaction with, and care of, objects, in the contexts of everyday life and the museum.

The discussion will be held on MS Teams. Free but booking essential - click here.

Click here for exhibition publication.