This is Claire Barclay and Laura Spring’s first collaboration. Fuelled by their shared interest in historic Scandinavian craft and design, both have undertaken independent research trips to Sweden and Finland. Recently Spring spent time in Finland researching weaving and tufting techniques that has led to the incorporation of Ryijy, a wool knotting process and design inspired by täkänä processes within their work.
Täkänä is an ancient Finnish weaving technique with the earliest täkänäs being recorded in the 1400s in Finland. It literally translates as ‘double-cloth’ and is a complicated weaving technique that is usually woven in only two colours with the same pattern appearing in negative on reverse. The simple, graphic designs of the Ryijy’s presented here are based on developments into designs for täkänä, created by Spring in 2018 during a design residency in Helsinki. In many ways these works are experimental and exploratory and a celebration of craft traditions most often seen within the home.
The stools have flexible uses; the larger stool is accompanied by a wall panel that doubles as a back rest and the smaller stool might also function as a child’s seat or a footstool.
Claire Barclay studied at The Glasgow School of Art, based in Glasgow. She works predominantly with sculpture, print processes, and large-scale installations, creating in 2017 Yield Point for Tramway, Glasgow. Her work engages a wide range of hand-making and fabrication processes to explore the nature of materials, methods of production and relationships between people and objects. Her artwork has been exhibited widely, including the Venice Biennale (2003); The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2009); Kunstverein Braunschweig (2007); Glasgow International Festival and Gwangju Biennale (2016). Most recently she has contributed to Strange Foreign Bodies at The Huntarian Art Gallery, Glasgow (2018), with works made in response to artifacts from the Hunter Collection at Glasgow University.
www.clairebarclay.net
Laura Spring is a textile designer/maker living and working in Glasgow. Bold, graphic prints combined with bright colours transformed into crafted products are at the core of Spring’s practice. Spring creates annual collections of functional, vibrant homewares and accessories produced in-house or locally and is committed to supporting ethical methods of production and works closely with suppliers. Interested in the correspondence between the hand-made and the batch-produced, her work is often informed by historic production cultures. Spring also works to commission, with clients including Heal’s, Tate, V&A Dundee, Belle & Sebastian, House of Voltaire and The National Trust for Scotland.
www.lauraspring.co.uk