The “Community Ties” project at Creative Spark is designed to bring community members together through the art of textile tufting, an engaging and tactile skill that encourages creativity and self-expression.

This inclusive, hands-on project will comprise a series of workshops offering community group participants the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of rug tufting - from ideas through design to executing individual custom tufted pieces. Throughout this collaborative project, participants will be guided by skilled instructors and have access to all necessary tools and materials.

A workshop exploring creative portraiture / self-portraiture will kick of the programme, encouraging reflection on how portraits (and use of colour/materials) can capture both external and internal realities. 

The project will begin with quick, intuitive portrait drawing sessions to music with each drawing being the length of a tune. 

As the project progresses, the essence of these drawings will be translated onto ‘monk’ cloth, a special fabric used for rug tufting. From here these portraits will be used as the source designs for the textile wool tufting element of project. The individual pieces will be assembled into a large-scale wall-hanging.

Please note that the details of events listed above are provided by the relevant Local Authorities.