Shipley Lates: Wearable Art

Hot on the heels of my lino print workshop last week, I headed off to the Shipley Art Gallery for another night of crafting (and cake) at the weekend.

My friend accompanied me to the Wearable Art workshop, part of the Shipley Lates programme, and we managed three of the five workshops on offer (having been somewhat distracted by cake).

On arrival, we made a beeline for the fresh flower corsage making with Gateshead Floral Art Society.

We sat down and dabbed blooms and greenery onto a piece of gauze with flower glue, which I didn’t even know existed!

After pinning them onto our lapels, we headed to the 3D paper jewellery workshop with visual artist Yvette Hawkins and spent the best part of an hour folding pieces of metallic paper to make an origami bracelet.

Then it was back into the main gallery for a pit-stop at The Tea Shed pop-up cafe (did I mention the cake?) before embarking on some more paper folding, this time to make a necklace with cable ties and origami with visual artist Tanya Axford.

My friend bought a lovely scarf from the Oxfam pop-up shop, but we didn’t take advantage of the embellishments on offer, instead trying in vain to secure a spot at the table being hosted by Helen Pailing.

Sadly, we never got to make one of her ‘playful’ headpieces, brooches and corsages, but we did catch the Katharine Morling exhibition instead.

The award-winning ceramic artist creates ‘three-dimensional drawings in the medium of ceramics’ and it really does feel like you’ve walked into a sketchbook when you look at her work.

I wonder if I could write with one of her ceramic pens?