Jane Vanroe

Fabric inspiration and silver compact designed by Jane Vanroe based on Bradford College Textile Archive collections

"For my new work I chose an 1897 fabric sample from the Student Collection.  The fabric was part of Victorian college student P. Yewdall’s submission for his final City & Guilds examination. I was drawn to its daisy motif and its importance to Yewdall as an examination piece before he joined the boom industry of his day.

With my ‘mix’ of Yewdall’s daisy I wanted to design for the manufacturing industry we have in today’s Yorkshire. Where might Yewdall have worked if he graduated now? The jacquard mills have gone, but one in eight of us Bradfordians are still employed in making. My own work is mainly in British pewter, which I love for its permanence and history. So, I imagined Yewdall as a pewterers’ apprentice and transposed his design for metal.

The mirror you see here is made in solid pewter in Sheffield. I simplified and vectorised (made digital) Yewdall’s daisy, so it could be laser-cut into brass. The brass is pressed into pewter to make a raised motif for each mirror. The words are in my own writing - a thank you to Yorkshire manufacturing and to Yewdall, from over one hundred years on."