Help preserve our future
West Dean is part of a registered charity and relies on the support of generous donors, friends, legacies to help us deliver world-class education in conservation and the creative arts and maintain our award-winning gardens.
Celia Pym
Celia Pym is a teacher with 15 years experience. She works with knitted, stitched and woven textiles and has been exploring mending since 2007 with extensive experience of everyday holes. She was shortlisted for the Woman's Hour Craft Prize, V&A Museum and inaugural Loewe Craft Prize, COAM Madrid. Her work was included in Subversive Stitch, TJ Boulting 2019 and is held in Crafts Council UK and Noveau Musée National de Monaco permanent collections. She is currently visiting lecturer in textiles at Royal College of Art.
Describe your approach to teaching.
My approach to teaching is student centered. My start questions are always what is it that students aim to develop and learn, what skills do they already have and can share. I believe that through making you develop creativity with materials and thinking. Another central aim in my teaching is to have fun in a workshop.
What inspires your own work?
My work is inspired by: objects of daily use (sweaters, socks, bowls, towels, wooden spoons), by wool and yarn, by damage, holes and wear and tear and also by play and positive accidents in play. I currently love Boro quilts, Richard Tuttle's paintings, Sophie Tauber Arp's embroideries, Eva Hesse's sculptures and Herman Schloten's tapestries