Shelley Rhodes: UNmaking Weekend

By Shelley Rhodes, 23 October 2026

Shelley Rhodes, Found Cloth Series (Detail)

I recently travelled south to The Museum in the Park, in Stroud for a ‘Meet the Artist’ session and to teach a workshop, alongside the latest TSG exhibition ‘UNmaking’.
I spent Saturday afternoon in the gallery with fellow TSG member Mandy Pattullo.
It was the first time we had seen the exhibition, so we arrived early to have a look around. Before long, we had lots of visitors who seem to have travelled far and wide to see the exhibition, chat with us about our work and see some of the samples that we had bought along for handling. Everyone was very interested in the unmaking and making process and the ideas behind our work. At the same time Bobby Britnell was a teaching a workshop and it was great to see her towards the end of the afternoon and to see the work that her students made.

The following day, I taught a workshop called ‘Reworked Cloth: Fragment and Repair’. It was very much inspired by the pieces that I made for UNmaking, in which I use found cloth, that I fragmented and reconfigured to create new work. My own work is related to the location at which it was found, with hints of map references, words and location co-ordinates. Much of the ‘found cloth’ I have used was already weathered and distressed. I fragmented further, made further changes and added scraps of other fabric before reconstructing the cloth that led to the series of work.

Along the same lines, for the workshop, I asked everyone to bring along piece of cloth that they were willing to rework. It could be pre-used, weathered and worn, new and pristine or even something that they had previously dyed, printed or stitched. Participants were asked to alter and rework their cloth by chopping, changing and rearranging. I gave out a series of prompts for them to respond to. The format of the cloth changed as they cut up, distressed, flipped, rotated and moved the pieces, before joining and repairing using hand stitch. In some cases, further alterations were made through manipulation and the addition of a variety of media.