Textile students from Coleg Gwent’s Monmouth Learn-IT Centre have been revealing the fabric of Monmouth’s history in a ‘Postcards from Monmouth’ project inspired by the town’s wealth of interesting historical and architectural features and prominent people.
The creative textiles class used historic and interesting aspects of the ancient market town including the Monnow Bridge, St. Mary’s Priory and Church and Charles Rolls, co-founder of Rolls Royce, pioneer aviator and motorist, whose statue stands outside the Shire Hall. Students sketched drawings, took photographs and collected old maps, leaflets and postcards to help design the hand-stitched fabric postcards.
For the first part of the project and a special exhibition in the town`s Nelson Museum, students drew inspiration from Charles Rolls to coincide with the centenary of his death in 1910 which is being marked by a range of events locally. Students were given permission to use text from old Monmouthshire Beacon articles and the Nelson Museum kindly allowed students to have copies of photographs from their extensive Rolls collection.
Using postcard sized pieces of pelmet Vilene as a base, selected pictures and text were combined with mixed media, stitch and surface decoration techniques to decorate the fronts. The backs were also made from pelmet Vilene, with printed and hand lettering added to make them look more like real postcards. Before the back and front sections were then bonded or stitched together, using card in the between the two layers to add strength, some back sections were posted locally to add authenticity with a local postmark.
Monmouth Museum’s Curator Andrew Helme said: “We were intrigued by the project and delighted to be able to include it in the entrance hall showcase. It has attracted a lot of interest and the postcards themselves look really good. The group’s creative use of textiles provides a really unique and individual take on the Charles Rolls exhibition.”
Monmouth Learn IT Centre Manager Nathan Pearce said: “This is the first time that these students have worked on a group project like this. Some were experienced stitchers and have attended previous creative textile classes at the Centre. Others had little or no prior experience using stitch or combining it with mixed media techniques. All were very pleased at what they had achieved and felt it was an interesting way of highlighting the rich history of the town.”
Creative textile classes OCN levels 1-3 are held at Monmouth Learn-IT Centre fortnightly during term time. Please telephone 01600 775564 for more information.
