Pick By Pick
Guest post by Ruby Wilson
Textiles are timeless – as are many of the techniques used to construct them – and Margo Selby demonstrates this in a new partnership exhibition, Pick By Pick, with the Rochester art Gallery and Huguenot Museum. This show includes Margo’s own archive designs as well as pieces created for the exhibition using a Huguenot weaving instrument called a Lampas.
A textile designer and weaver, Margo completed a postgraduate degree at the Royal College of Art before working at an industrial mill. During her time there she created her trademark three-dimensional fabrics, and her expertise in weaving is now at the heart of all her products including fabric, carpet, rugs and accessories.
Margo values the legacy of textiles, explaining that she is eager to keep the tradition of weaving alive to pass down to future generations. By using the Lampas technique for this show, she is practicing exactly what she preaches. Lampas is a wooden weaving structure that was used by the French to make exquisite brocade fabrics. It was then developed in England by the wave of Huguenot refugees who were fleeing religious persecution. Using such old weaving practices is proof in itself of textiles' timeless, transient nature.
Margo Selby: Pick By Pick, 15 December 2017 – 24 February 2018
Huguenot Museum, 95 High Street, Rochester, Kent, ME1 1LX