Table cloth Rag Rug, cotton tablecloth from Ocean Restaurant, lurex blue cloth belonging to El Brown, white jersey offcuts from T-shirt pattern, white cotton and blue cotton remnants artists own, 78 x 100cm, 2020

Table cloth Rag Rug was made during residency at The nOse, Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex, UK 10 -23 August 2020

“Celia Pym is with me in Walton this week on a residency at The nOse. She has been making a rag rug using four materials; one of them an old table cloth from Ocean, a Bangladeshi restaurant that was once based at this address. Everyday she works on it for a few hours and the coil grows a little larger. Celia has been reading ‘A Communion of the Spirits’ by Roland L. Freeman (1996), the first survey of African-American quilt makers and a a personal record of how Freeman’s life intertwined with the world of quilt making for nearly sixty years.”

“Week 2: Celia working as she comes to the end of her residency at The nOse; braiding on the terrace in changing weather, wearing the rug as armour, imaging the turn of the spiral as the growth of a shell. The Rag Rug has become bigger than the table top, the ends have been woven into finish and placed upstairs in the hall. This is the first ‘Article’ that has been made for The nOse. Now working on swim suit silhouettes and three dimensional weaving ideas.”

El Brown, @waltononthenose (instagram) 16 August 2020, 21 August 2020