A History of East London Textile Arts and Textile Traditions in Newham

Pre-ELTA’s beginnings

Its roots go back to 2007 when John Connor, community worker at The Froud Centre first suggested to Celia Ward, founder of ELTA, that a textile project might be needed in the Manor Park/Little Ilford area of Newham. Together they planned to create one.

Celia was a painter, coming to Newham in 2005 from Bucharest, Romania, where she had set up an art centre. She was inspired to set up a textile project through the dazzling array of fabrics and costumes around the streets in the shops in Newham, including the large Hindu and Sikh festivals that filled the streets around her home on special festival days.

After 8 months of planning, a year-long project was set up involving The Froud Centre, St Barnabas Church and Kensington School. Its first name was Manor Park Community Textile Project. After the first year two people joined, Sonia Tuttiett and Lorna Lambert, whose expertise and dedication transformed the project into one producing highly finished work and attracting the most skilled women in Newham’s communities.

The Alphabet Project

In the following year an Alphabets of the World project was undertaken, with Trinity Centre, E12, and Little Ilford Baptist Church joining in. The organisation then became The Alphabet Project. Numbers attending classes grew, coming from Newham’s diverse communities. The project began to take on the feel of a more permanent organisation.

ELTA and its first years

Finally in December 2010 a Constituted Community Group was formed taking on the name of East London Textile Arts with Isky Osman, Chief Executive of Trinity Centre, becoming ELTA’s first chair. One of the first projects to be undertaken was the Newham Map, where members of Little Ilford Textile Group each embroidered a square of the map of Newham and Sonia Tuttiett organised the making of it into a hanging. It hangs still in Little Ilford Baptist church where the multi-faith textile group still meet.

ELTA and Adults with Learning Disabilities

Around this time we started working with London Borough of Newham’s Day Services for Adults with learning disabilities and this was the beginning of a very happy partnership which continues to this day. It began at Trinity Centre where ELTA ran sessions for adults with learning disabilities for over five years.

Underwater design, by The McGrath Group, (learning disability group) textile and paper design © Celia Ward

ELTA soon developed a way of teaching in an inclusive way, for all levels of ability; to people of all beliefs, ages, and interests. Though we taught adults with learning disabilities mostly (but not always) in different classes, they joined with other groups for  exhibitions and booklets, with their work valued and integrated into mainstream creative forums.

Exhibitions and Booklets

Cover design of exhibition booklet for ELTA’s first central London show at St Martin-in-the-Fields in 2012 ©Celia Ward

Exhibitions and booklets became central to projects. ELTA did not only provide classes but contributed to the life of the borough and wider city, by providing a voice to people who otherwise had few opportunities for their talents to be seen. The quality of work produced on the project is important to everyone. In the run-up to exhibitions there is a great sense of excitement, of having to work hard and speedily to get everything ready on time. More permanent records are kept through booklets, which also records all the participants’ names.

Textiles, Health and Wellbeing

In 2010 ELTA undertook its first public health project partnering with Kent Community Health NHS Trust, with work showing at St Martin-in-the-Fields and a children’s book Look after your Teeth being launched at Manor Park Library in 2015, with dentists and hospital dental departments very pleased to have an illustrated booklet to support their work caring for children’s teeth. ELTA’s work became noticed by King’s College, London Dental school and it became involved in their outreach work, involved in training students about communicating with adults with learning disabilities.

Tooth Witch Costume, designed and made by Lorna Lambert, photograph by Celia Ward Fashion Shoot, Little Ilford Church 2014 ©Celia Ward

Following the success of this ELTA embarked on a Dissecting Diabetes project in partnership with Newham Public Health. A large-scale exhibition was held at the Art Workers’ Guild. ELTA was invited to talk at medical conferences about how communities could support health providers in communicating public health messages.

ELTA Fashion Shows

Another departure at around this time was our first fashion show which was the culmination of a project Our street dress where printed fabric designs were made from participants’ embroideries and then made into clothes and accessories. Our group of adults with learning disabilities, (who had become The McGrath Makers), proved themselves excellent models. They have been modelling ELTA fashion ever since 2016, when Elle Silanapaa, from the London College of Fashion, conducted a photoshoot at Newham City Farm.

ELTA and the Environment

Plants and flowers have been central to textiles from the dawn of time and ELTA continues with these ancient traditions, using embroidery to highlight issues of concern in our current environment.  In 2016/17 we worked with The Friends of Epping Forest to embroider the vulnerable birds and other flora and fauna (especially popular were beetles and funghi) in the forest. These embroideries we made into fabrics.  For our exhibition at The Visitor Centre in Epping Forest we used simple home-made dolls to show off the embroidery. 

Funghi embroidery on hand-made doll with tree pattern behind. © Fehmi Hanoglu, 2018

In 2021/22 a second environmental project was done in partnership with the Friends of the River Roding to highlight the need for restoration of the river and its banks.

Museum Partnerships and the Watts Gallery

Our first museum project was the Migrant’s Coat which took place at Tate Exchange in 2017 which was then followed by making puppets for the Watts gallery to go alongside an exhibition about the Victorian outsider artist, James Henry Pullen. For this Lorna Lambert made a collection of puppets, inspired by the museum visit, of Mammon and his Victims.

Lorna Lambert’s Mammon and his victims, inspired by George Watts painting of Mammon © Celia Ward 2018

ELTA continued with making textiles for The Watts Gallery, this time, about the English Orientalist painter John Frederic Lewis. For this an Octagon Gown was made with over 200 individually embroidered octagons contributed by over 60 people, mostly from ELTA’s Newham classes, but some from Surrey, where the Watts Gallery is situated. This was designed and made into the kind of oriental gown that John Frederic Lewis would have painted.

Octagon gown by ELTA participants, designed and finished Sonia Tuttiett © Elle Sillanpaa 18/10/2019

The Four Friends from Kalila wa Dimna

Collaboration is at the heart of ELTA, both with community groups and with cultural organisations. This project was the brain child of Academic, Rachel Scott, from Royal Holloway University of London.

Artists and community groups from around the world created work around themes of friendship and migration, which culminated in an exhibition at the P21 Gallery in May 2022.  This ambitious project was interrupted by Covid, but this did not stop ELTA ladies from working. Immediately lockdown was announced classes went online, and Sonia kept projects going by personally delivering embroidery designs by bicycle, discussing techniques safely from the pavement while embroiders stood on their doorsteps. By the time the exhibition finally happened in 2022, ELTA had created a huge amount of work and dominated the show. The central piece was a Turtle Jacket, where many people embroidered turtles and their shells and which Sonia designed and finished into a fabulous Turtle Jacket. Over the years ELTA learnt how to make elegant loose-fitting costumes most participants could happily wear.

A children’s book was published with embroideries from many different people, with a text lent from the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. The work was on show at The Art Workers’ Guild for nearly 6 months, then at the P21 Gallery for a month, followed by Stratford Library for another month. ELTA contributed to online discussions with textile artist Alice Kettle, and gave embroidery classes at the P21 gallery with ELTA Volunteers helping teach.

Again some members of ELTA started their own projects, including one that Sindy Jackson began in lockdown.

Talks, Outings and Celebrations and how ELTA works

Funding has always been on a project-by-project basis, yet classes have always taken place and teachers always paid (ELTA became good at fundraising!). But this could not have happened unless  volunteering and the giving of much time, had not always been at the heart of ELTA’s work. For younger members, work experience, usually paid, is often offered, and pathways to future careers discussed and encouraged.

Embroidery and textiles look outward to other worlds. ELTA is always about more than teaching stitches and sewing. It is a cultural and social organisation, running trips to museums to learn about craft, design and art history. It has participated in Lunchtime Conversations at the Art Workers’ Guild. Accompanying projects are talks about health, or the environment, or a text that is being illustrated. For the last booklet “Songs of the River Roding” poems by participants were included. It copes too with the management of ELTA being run by local people, meeting monthly on zoom throughout the year.

Celebrations at the end of every project are much enjoyed, bringing together all that has been made, and reviewing what has been achieved. After 15 years of making, building expertise, community and beautiful textiles, the enthusiasm of members just goes on growing.

Costumes with Parrot textile design by members of Little Ilford Textile Group with backdrop by Sleepy Realm July 2022

For more information about East London Textile Arts find us on Instagram and on our website.