Our Work > Crafts > Urban Craft Club > What We're Up To

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Autumn/Winter 2011

The Urban Craft Club has just finishedundertook a 9-week project, making a mural for outside that mixes techniques in painting, relief and mosaics.

It seems the majority of London is in a constant state of flux, regeneration and change, and the piece is a reflection of this. For inspiration the group looked at architectural sites throughout London, as well as elements of scaffolding, building structures and cranes.

The piece was created using materials members brought in to incorporate into the mural, such as old pottery, plates, china, metal, wire, debris and cloth.

Summer 2011

We created a colourful 'Summer Inspired' wall hanging, that took 10-weeks to complete. The piece was a communal effort by the whole club and we used wool and recycling textiles to combine various processes of knitting, sewing, tying and knotting.

Each week members brought in all sorts of unusual textiles and objects to share and add to the piece, such as unused cassette tapes, a South American doll, 'Grandma's old silk shorts' and a deck of cards!

We were also joined on a number of weeks by textile designer Charlene Sandy, who runs the Knitting Club. Both clubs joined forces for the Mayton Street Festival 2011 and collaborated on the project to help develop the wall-hanging.

Islington Exhibits Exhibition

The finished piece was exhibited with a selection of our other projects at The Old Fire Station from 14 - 17 July 2011. This exhibition was part of Islington Exhibits, an initiative to unlock hidden venues to give artists and craft persons a space to display their work.

Address: 84 Mayton Street, N7 6QT (see map for directions)

Spring 2011

In January we started a 12-week project making sculptural pieces out of wire mesh and paper mache. The theme of the project was The Urban Landscape & Natural Forms and the group looked at the unusual way nature effects the city.

Initially we spent time discussing and sketching ideas, looking at interesting photographs, cut outs from magazines and found objects that inspire us. We then moved on to using the wire mesh and experimented with ways to manipulate the material and create different forms.

Over the weeks we worked on our final designs, creating surfaces using layers of paper mache and combining found objects and debris to the overall structures. Everyone interpreted the theme very differently making pieces that ranged from a straight-jacket over grown with ivy, to a house with chicken legs, to a set of tower-blocks sprouting seeds.

Autumn 2010

In autumn 2010 we carried out a 10-week mosaic project. The theme of this project was Nature and I encouraged the group to interpret this idea in a very abstract way, thinking about pattern, texture and colour.

One of the club members documented their mosaic through-out the project and uploaded a video of the images on to YouTube. Click here to see how the piece progressed.

Manor Gardens Cafe Exhibition

We had a very successful exhibition of our mosaics at the Manor Gardens Cafe, Manor Gardens, Holloway, N7 6LA. The work was on display from Tuesday 8 March - Friday 15 April, 2011.

UCC Feedback

To read feedback from the Urban Craft Club members and volunteers click here