Archive research

The Archive at Sunny Bank Mills has been a place of invaluable research enabling me to access the material and heritage of the woollen mills and deepen my research. The ability to see the physical material and carefully preserved cloths and tools have provided many artists and weavers with first hand information on the knowledge and understanding of the mills staff - their lives and daily working practices and the detail and skills needed to work in the mills. I was particularly struck by selvedge pieces - the ends of cloth and how interesting the signing off of a piece of weaving. This has given me inspiration to work on glass fabric about endings, changes and the frayed edges ...and also words/ writing in glass.