London Craft Week: Nature's Palette, From Ground to Cloth.

With Selvedge Issue 130, Flower, currently on shelves, we couldn't help but follow the thread of florals and botanicals as they bloom across London Craft Week this May. From earth pigments and plant dyes to living root textiles and paper wildflowers, nature is not merely an inspiration this year, it is the material itself. 

Colour Rituals: Unearthed. An exhibition at the de Le Cuona Pimlico showroom with Anna Starmer of Luminary Colour.

At the heart of this year’s programming is a conversation about where colour comes from, evocatively expressed in Colour Rituals: Unearthed, an immersive installation at the de Le Cuona Pimlico showroom. Here, Anna Starmer of Luminary Colour brings de Le Cuona’s refined natural textiles into dialogue with hand-crafted earth pigment sculptures by Polly Bennett. Minerals foraged across Britain (London clay, Sussex soils, the Isle of Wight’s rich strata) are transformed into pigment and placed alongside woven cloth. The result is a deeply sensory experience in which colour is not chosen from a chart and applied, but excavated, revealing de Le Cuona’s enduring commitment to material authenticity and a profound connection to the natural world.

Neera Sehgal in her studio at Chiswick House

The printed surface is another place where the botanical world finds its voice. Neera Sehgal, working from her studio at Chiswick House & Gardens, brings an intimate understanding of block printing through a technique that carries the warmth of the hand in every impression. Rory Hutton's richly detailed lino-printed designs reinterpret historical sources (William Morris wallpapers, the planting schemes of great gardens) with a contemporary sensibility that rewards close looking. And from her Shropshire studio, Speronella Marsh produces hand-block printed antique linens featuring natural forms in gentle, muted palettes, each piece unique and entirely suited to a slow and considered interior life...

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Image Credits:

Lead: Erin McQuarrie, The Language of the Air (detail)

All further images courtesy of the artists and London Craft Week