Yorkshire Year of the Textile: Crafted Futures

Senior Teaching Fellow, Elizabeth Gaston’s work is currently on display in the Crafted Futures exhibition housed in the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery until July 9th.

Part of the Yorkshire Year of the Textile, the exhibition helps to celebrate the rich textile heritage of the county through artistic activity led by the University of Leeds.

Elizabeth’s work responds to William Gott’s 1815 Dyehouse Pattern Book and is produced using woollen fabric from A. W. Hainsworth based in Pudsey, who’ve been manufacturing since 1783.

Yorkshire Year of the Textile, Elizabeth Gaston, Leeds university, Exhibition, Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery
Commenting on her work Elizabeth explains:

“Colour is an important part of my work, but mixing colour in yarn is very different than mixing colour in pigment. This work explores the theories of colour contrast, assimilation and optical mixing along with the use of varying stitch size and density to create a wide gamut of colour from a limited palette of threads.”

The form used within her work is directly influenced by the page layout in Gott’s pattern book, which can be found in neighboring gallery, Treasures of the Brotherton. Technology allows us to see thumbnail images of the pages simultaneously in a way that would have been unimaginable to Gott and this is echoed in the layering of forms in the five pieces.

The second stage of the project will include a collaboration with technologist Muriel Rigout, who has used some of Gott’s original recipes to create digital printing inks and will incorporate colour manipulation through print and stitch.