Making as Learning - Hannah Lamb textile artist

Inheritance, 2024

Vintage patchwork quilt, cotton, cyanotype. 106 x 167 x 25cm

An understanding of materials is accumulated over a lifetime. Learning through making and unmaking, stitching and unpicking; thousands of repetitive actions accumulate to become a knowledge of the hands. Hannah’s experience of teaching textiles in higher education for the past two decades gives her a sense of responsibility for passing on textile knowledge but also an awareness that she learns just as much from her students and peers. Our own experiences combine with inherited material knowledge to shape our individual dialect of cloth.

With thanks to photographer Anna Kornatovska.

Exhibited in Making as Learning with the 62 Group at Salts Mill.

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Inheritance, 2024 by Hannah Lamb. Photo: Lucy Forrester

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Inheritance, 2024 by Hannah Lamb. Photo: Lucy Forrester

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Inheritance, 2024 by Hannah Lamb. Photo: Lucy Forrester

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Inheritance, 2024 by Hannah Lamb. Photo: Lucy Forrester

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Inheritance, 2024 (detail) by Hannah Lamb. Photo: Lucy Forrester ×

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Inheritance, 2024 by Hannah Lamb. Photo: Lucy Forrester

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Inheritance, 2024 by Hannah Lamb. Photo: Lucy Forrester

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Accretion, 2024

Repurposed drop cloths, cotton, cyanotype, hand stitch. 300 x 145 x 40cm approx.

accretion, n. The process of growing by the gradual external accumulation of matter.

We learn by making, but first we learn by watching others make. This piece pays homage to the many hands Hannah has learnt from. The careful way one person holds a fabric when she turns it, the expressive dancing hands of another when they get excited about materials; the particular ways that other people use their hands to make, show and talk about textiles has continually fed and nurtured her own material knowing. Over time, observed movements and tactile responses become augmented with our own textile knowledge.

With thanks to photographer Anna Kornatovska.