Welcome to Season 2 of PATTERN PORTRAITS! In this first episode of the new season, Lauren Godfrey chats with curator, writer and broadcaster, Amber Butchart about the power of souvenirs, the compulsory nature of leopard print and the joys of London Transport seating fabric!

You’ll probably know Amber from her very special TV series A Stitch In Time in which Amber explores the lives of historical figures through the clothes they wore, or perhaps for her regular appearances as the fashion historian on The Great British Sewing Bee! She is unmissable with impeccable dress sense and an iconic red bob, usually topped off with a colourful turban.

Amber has chosen patterns from many different sources, from 1960’s Anaglypta wallpaper, an Uzbek Ikat tunic bought in Istanbul, a leopard print carpet, a bespoke leopard print featuring her own silhouette by her partner Rob Flowers, a bedsheet from the Chinese Cultural revolution and a London Transport moquette from the London Country Buses.

Amber hosts her own podcast ‘Cloth Cultures’ for The British Textile Biennial which is a beautiful exploration of movement, migration and making through cloth. Her stunning exhibition ‘The Fabric of Democracy’ was at The Fashion and Textiles Museum in London earlier in 2024, exploring printed propaganda textiles over more than two centuries. It was a truly remarkable show really driving home the idea of pattern and fabric as codes and communicators - if ever we were in doubt about the power of pattern, this show dispelled it!

You can see all of Amber’s patterns and more on instagram @patternportraitspodcast

The PATTERN PORTRAIT print artwork to accompany Amber’s interview and featuring the patterns we discuss is available to buy now at www.laurengodfrey.co.uk

References / Links:

Bar américain at Zedel, London

Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood director of the Textile Research Centre in Leiden

Enid Marx- mentioned in relation to the London Transport Moquettes

Lauren Elkin article about textiles

Josef frank - Italian dinner

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Season 2 of Pattern Portraits is coming soon!

I’m Lauren Godfrey and each week I chat with fellow pattern lovers about a few of the patterns special to them.

Each guest picks a handful of their favourite patterns and these open up conversation about the their wider world of work and life and lead us down avenues of tartan and passageways of paisley with a little diversion in a floral forest!

Because it’s such a visual feast in an audible format, I’ve made prints to accompany each episode, a kind of undulating landscape of pattern on pattern, capturing the guests personality through the patterns they choose. You can buy the prints through my website, www.laurengodfrey.co.uk and this is a great way to support the podcast too if you’d like to hear more!

You can also follow @patternportraitspodcast on instagram to see the patterns we discuss and clips from the interviews.

This season is full of juicy nuggets of wisdom from some amazing pattern addicts, I hope you enjoy joining me on an odyssey of pattern as this season unfurls!

Season 2 of Pattern Portraits, coming soon!

With clips from interviews with Amber Butchart and Zoé Whitley, music by Alex Brenchley

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Welcome to this Bonus Episode of PATTERN PORTRAITS in collaboration with MIMA!

Lauren Godfrey chats with artist Jacqueline Poncelet on the occasion of her exhibition ‘In The Making’ at MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.

We chat about intelligent risk taking, the importance of travel for Jacqui and the visual beefy soup of the world around us!

Artist Jacqueline Poncelet graduated from an MA in ceramics from The Royal College of Art in 1972 and garnered a broad following in the international ceramics scene in the 70s and 80s, Jacqueline is an artist whose career spans 50 years and now explores ceramics, painting, sculpture and textiles as well as large scale public commissions. Her work varies from tiny and hand held to vast in scale, wrapping Edgware Road Underground station in a symphony of patterned vitreous enamel in 2012.

Pattern is at the crux of all she makes, whether it’s subtly impressed into bone china forms, spliced together in carpet swatches covering the floor, or woven into tactile blankets depicting the seasonal colour shifts of the hills of South Wales.

This episode of Pattern Portraits is in collaboration with MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art which is part of the School of Arts & Creative Industries at Teesside University. Jacqueline Poncelet’s solo exhibition ‘In The Making’ is on view there until 23rd June 2024. I highly recommend a visit, this stunning show envelops the breadth of Jacqueline’s practice over the past 50 years. Taking a thematic approach, it presents new reflections on work from different eras of Poncelet’s practice. This exhibition is her largest to date and is supported by Freelands Foundation and The Henry Moore Foundation. MIMA and Jacqui won the prestigious Freelands Award in 2021 which recognises the work of a midcareer woman artist who has not yet received the acclaim their work deserves.

I urge you to go and see the show and you will be rewarded with a feast of pattern!

Jacqui has chosen patterns across many forms, a painting - Edouard Vuillard, Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist, 1893, a ceramic platter by Janice Tchalenko, a Japanese Kimono acquired whilst in Tokyo and a Welsh coat.

You can see all these patterns and more on instagram @patternportraitspodcast

The PATTERN PORTRAIT print artwork to accompany Jacqui’s interview and featuring the patterns we discuss is available to buy now at www.laurengodfrey.co.uk and via the MIMA shop.

Season Two will be coming soon, follow @patternportraitspodcast to stay in the loop!

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