Recipe to Recreate
A solo show of contemporary craftwork by Alison Bailey Smith
May 2nd – 26th of May 2007
at The Voirrey Embroidery Centre
Brimstage Hall, Brimstage, Wirral
CH63 6JA
0151 342 3514
Private View – Tuesday 1st May 18.00 – 20.00
This is Alison Bailey Smith’s first full solo show since her return to the UK in 2002. Her work has spanned almost 2 decades of work and three different countries since leaving Edinburgh College of Art in 1990.
The motivation behind Alison�s work comes from being the child of post war parents, Scottish thriftiness and an avid watcher of Blue Peter! Her need to re-use, re-develop and re-create can be seen in her wide use of ordinary materials with extra-ordinary results.
Although her training was initially in jewellery and silver-smithing, she has crossed over successfully into the world of textiles, costume and fashion � evident in her numerous awards (Scottish Fashion Designer of the Year, Recycling Fashion Designer of the Year and various awards for Fibre in North America and Australasia).
Alison’s staple ingredient in her work is wire that she reclaims from old televisions, the older the better. She has found over a hundred different colours and hues of copper and aluminium wire. Lately though, due to the rate of development in technology, she is finding it harder to find the old television sets and has had to resort to buying various colours of wire! There is always a high component of re-used materials in her work – whether it is re-using charity shop finds or sweetie wrappers to get the right colour. She has become increasingly aware of how wasteful our society is becoming.
Alison is currently working on a project with The Shaftesbury Youth Group in Tranmere on eco fashion show, where the young people have been re-creating garments using donated trimmings, drinks bottles, match sticks, etc to make new clothes that they will model in a fashion show on the 5th of June – World Environment Day.
A full range of Alison’s work will be on show from corsets to jewellery, baskets to framed work – all for sale.