Lesley Millar

Trustee: 2018 – present

Faced with the treasure trove of beautiful objects that is the Crafts Study Centre’s collection from which to choose, in the end, I have selected those with which I have a personal connection – well almost all... The objects and their creators take me right back to my earliest days working in and with textiles, and forward to recent projects.

Mary Restieaux had been a very successful student on my course a couple of years before me and her extraordinary talent had, unknown to me, meant that when I knocked on the door of the course leader asking to be admitted, he welcomed me in. And then I discovered her work, vibrantly alive with colour at a time when weavers had a tendency for the muted and I was captured, wholly, and still am.

Moving forward in my textile life, I was incredibly fortunate to be offered an apprenticeship with the Graffham Weavers, founded by Gwen Mullins and run by her and her daughter Barbara Mullins. This was where I learnt the tough realities of understanding how to run a studio, albeit in the idyllic surroundings of the West Sussex countryside. Gwen Mullins was a remarkable woman who believed absolutely in the importance of craft – a donation from her enabled the foundation of what is now the Crafts Council – and we all have every reason to be grateful to her.

My connection with Maura Heslop and Emmanuel Cooper both belong to my time ‘doing’ Chelsea Crafts Fair – I loved her jewellery, its quirkiness, her strange creatures always made me smile and seem now to epitomise how exciting it was to be working and selling at that time. It is colour again that attracts me to Emmanuel Cooper’s pots, combined with the perfectly achieved shapes. When he visited our stand at Chelsea and bought a rug from me, I was overwhelmed, and gifted a new confidence through his purchase.

Diana Harrison has been in my life in one way or another for more than 40 years. We met in 1975 when we both had studio space in the London workshop 4011⁄2, and we have been colleagues here at UCA Farnham since 1986. I have admired and respected her work throughout that time, in all its different stages, and have
been fortunate to have been able to include it in several of the exhibitions I have curated. Diana exemplifies the very best of the Farnham approach to textile practice, possessing the essential combination of technical skills of the highest order and supreme understanding of her materials, both acquired over years of practice. Look carefully at the surfaces of her work and you will discover layers of material narrative which will keep you coming back again and again.

Finally to the one selected object with which I have no connection – Ray Key’s wooden bowl, selected for no other reason than I love beautifully turned wooden objects, and this is a perfect example, made by hand and meant to be held in the hand – if only it were mine.

This is what the Crafts Study Centre offers us with such generosity: the opportunity to experience exquisitely crafted objects that otherwise would be outside our reach. Long may it continue.

Professor Lesley Millar is Professor of Textile Culture, Director of the International Textile Research Centre at the University for the Creative Arts and an exhibition curator specialising in textiles. For her selection to the Moving Forward exhibition, Lesley chose the following pieces:

Loom woven linen and woollen rug, Secrets, 1971. Gwen Mullins T.74.36

Porcelain jug with a yellow glaze and gold lustre decoration, 2005. Emmanuel Cooper 2005.22

Animal Brooch, steel, silver and gold. Maura Heslop 2006.20.33

Bowl, natural topped burr mulberry, 1986.Ray Key 2006.20.105

Ikat-woven silk panel, 1986. Mary Restieaux T.82.25

Hand quilted, masked and screen-printed panel. Silk, cotton and calico, 1994 .Diana Harrison T.95.1.d