This fabulous fabric has lived at the Studios for two years. We are immensley fond of it; it is big, bold, bright and really brings the summer into the room. The photo below really doesn’t fo justicve tot he vibrancy of the colours in this design. It is a early 1980’s design by Susan Collier of Campbell Collier.
Susan Collier sadly died in 2011. There are numerous obituries available on the internet whcih tell us all about her design philosophy and technique; I especially like this quote from the Guardian:“As a born subversive, she challenged the rules of mechanical patterning, which from block to roller-cylinder print overorganised design, in what she described as a “plonkity-plonk” manner. Her motto was “cheat the repeat”. “I was politically motivated to produce beautiful cloth for the mass market,” she said. She enjoyed laundering and ironing too, all part of a textile’s life-cycle. She wanted her prints to be painterly, the brushmarks left in – visibly hand-created though mass-produced, not an easy effect to achieve through machines. When you see her art work, gouache creamy as custard, thin brush squiggles all over, you hear the indrawn breath of a printer about to say: “Are you sure you want it done like that?”
The writer describes this fabric as ‘matisse for the masses’.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that we cannot store this lovely piece of fabric and have put it up for sale on eBay. We want it to go to someone who will ensure it is appreciated, loved and used. Could this be you?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/may/15/susan-collier-obituary
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O268676/cote-dazure-6-views-furnishing-fabric-collier-susan/
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