We are very lucky to have a wonderful textile artwork in our windows through July. One of our regular print studio members Rosie James has been making a series of fantastic portraits through lockdown, in her signature style drawing with threads and leaving the ends hanging loose. We love Rosie’s work and were watching the artwork come together over the weeks as she invited people on Instagram to send her photos of themselves – so she could record this time of isolation in a creative way. We were delighted when she agreed to lend us the finished work for display at INTRA, at the time we would have been taking part in Medway Open Studios. The artwork has been hugely popular, with many people daily coming over to look closely, take photos and enjoy this beautiful and moving textile collage.

Rosie planned to stitch each portrait in a square 20 cms in size, and bring them together in one large panel. People sent in photographs of themselves doing all sorts of things, lazing around on the sofa, gardening, playing with the kids, baking, playing musical instruments, reading, jumping on the furniture, wearing animal heads, posing naked, having birthdays, getting married and more! Some were NHS keyworkers in PPE.

As we all started communicating on Zoom Rosie realised that this large panel was looking like one large textile Zoom session, so she put herself in the middle surrounded by a green edge, as if she was the one doing the talking.

Waiting for this meeting to start: 100 Lockdown stories by Rosie James is on display and visible from the high street at INTRA through July, and early August 2020.

While we are restarting some activities at our venue, this is currently only by appointment and our shop and drop-in sessions are not open for the time being. We hope that this window exhibition will be enjoyed by passers by while we are not able to welcome them in as usual.