For the past two years I have been making drawings and paintings of Somerset’s traditional craftspeople and collecting their stories. Some of the crafts are now very rare – bell-rope making, horsehair weaving and coiling bee skeps (baskets for bees). Other crafts may be more familiar, but the knowledge is ancient and the stories colourful. It is quite something that alongside our virtual screen-centred world there are people working with their hands using skills that are centuries old, computers nowhere in sight.
Perhaps one of the most fascinating places I visited was John Boyd Textiles ...
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