As I have been developing this blog and considering the brooches in my collection more closely, I have realised that I have been incredibly fortunate and honoured to have been gifted several of the pieces. I have already explained two of these - first in post 2 with the Kathleen Makinson and then in last week’s post with Fritz Maierhofer. This week’s piece is another in this ‘gifted’ category.

I have worked with Ruthin Craft Centre regularly for twelve years now, as a guest curator, exhibition designer and retail scout. Part of my remit for them for the last six years or so has been the curation and design of several of their stands at the annual Collect fair at the Saatchi Gallery (which has now moved to Somerset House).

In 2014 the tapestry weaver Jilly Edwards had one of the Project Spaces on the top floor of the gallery. This is where individuals could apply for a space to show a particular body of work across all genres of applied art. Jilly and I had first met a few years before in the planning stages of her solo exhibition at Ruthin in 2011. She was at the time living in my home city of Exeter and so it worked really well that I visited her and my family in the same trip. We got on really well and with our shared love of textiles (me having started life as a weaver too) we had lots in common.

As part of my involvement with Collect for Ruthin I also run the stand and so am there for the duration (clearly a great opportunity to wear a different brooch every day). On visiting Jilly’s space I discovered her wearing a brooch that contained a miniature tapestry from her own hand - it was gorgeous. She had collaborated with a Devon based jeweller called Sarah Scott and they had made several. I suggested that maybe I could wear one for the day, which would both decorate me and spread the word on her work and encourage people to visit her stand. There was also the nice connection between Ruthin and Jilly through her solo show I mentioned above. To my delight Jilly thought it was a great idea and so I went back down to our stand proudly wearing the piece you see below.

Wearing the brooch definitely had the desired effect as I had many comments and questions about it. At the end of the day I took the brooch back upstairs to return it and to my huge surprise Jilly suggested I keep it. I tried to pay but that was refused - and so I acquired this lovely piece.

I wore it for most of the fair that year and it always comes out at the annual event and attracts a lot of attention. It is not only fairly unusual to see a man wearing a brooch (although less so at an art fair such as this) but it is very unusual to find anybody wearing a tapestry.
It is by the way very carefully considered so that the textile can be removed from the silver frame via popper studs to enable cleaning of the metal - which inevitably tarnishes.

Coincidentally since starting this blog series, a post popped up on Instagram from #insituartconsultants about ‘men who wear brooches at art fairs’. One of the three images was of Jilly’s brooch on my lapel. Jilly had been tagged and so responded and included my hashtag. I remembered somebody asking me if they could take the picture (some time ago) and had thought nothing more of it. Myself and Maggie O’Regan who was said photographer and Director of InSitu are scheduled to have a chat soon.

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See the hyperlinks above (in slightly darker text). A newly discovered addition to the blogs…