Reflection on ‘A Common Thread’ by JPR Stitch

It always amazes me the length of time exhibitions are in preparation - the initial conversations between myself and The Brampton’s Exhibitions Officer, Nerys Williams, about a potential textile exhibition were back in spring 2024, just after the close of the Young Curator’s exhibition. Nerys and I had worked together on the Young Curators project where students from Madeley School curated an exhibition of artworks from my art dealing collection. The young curator’s exhibition focused on my role as an independent art dealer where I buy and sell artworks by artists such as Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Lowry and many more, but that is only part of what I do. I am, and have been for many years, a fine artist working in textiles.

Nerys, the wider Brampton team and I had a good working relationship during the Young Curators project. As that project drew to a close, it was a natural progression to begin conversations about working together collaboratively on a new project. As my own art is textile focused, this seemed like a nice place to start.  After initial conversations between Nerys and myself, we were both keen that the new project should be something that was wider than just an exhibition of my own bright and abstract textile art. But what could this look like? How could we create a project that would be of interest to people who like modern and contemporary art, but also be of interest to people who favour more historic based projects? Could we create a project that looked at both historic textiles and contemporary textiles?

Framing the project on ‘Newcastle-under-Lyme’ became a possible theme. The Brampton Museum is, after all, focused on the Boroughs’ history, and I myself have strong connections and links to the area. I was born, lived and went to school in the Borough and still live locally. But was there much of a history of textiles from Newcastle-under-Lyme? That was when Clare Griffiths, The Brampton Collections Officer got involved in the project.

The initial meeting between Clare, Nerys and myself was back in June 2024 and it was an eye-opener for me. Clare’s knowledge of the history of the Borough and knowledge of the Brampton’s collections is phenomenal. She began to reel off what textile-based pieces were in the museum’s collection, most of which had been made by people who lived in the local area - pattern books, oral histories, photographs, dresses, hats and other clothes, dolls clothes, samplers, embroidery artworks and so the list went on. She then began to talk about the industrial textile heritage of the local area - Enderley Mills, Friarswood Silk Mill, Belstaff, felt hat making and the Mosley Family (who lived in the house that the Brampton Museum now occupies) who were local drapers and so on.

We were beginning to form a project

After a series of meetings and conversations, the project went through many different iterations, where we explored ways of displaying these very different ‘exhibitions’ in a way that felt coherent and thoughtful. Should the exhibition mix the contemporary art, the history, the collection together or should they be separate? What should the story be? What did we want people to experience when they were in the exhibition?

Within our conversations, we were often talking about people, the people who worked in the factories, the people who made the clothes that were now in the museum’s collection. That became our ‘common thread’.

We decided that we had three stories, one of contemporary art (my art), one of craft (the artifacts from the museum collection) and one of industry, but they were linked by two things - how people have used textiles in different ways and the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme.

The project was beginning to come together. We had formed the bones of an exhibition that celebrated textiles, that had a focus on the local area and that would have an interest to different audiences.  

The next step was to develop plans for each exhibition - what would be exhibited, what would the exhibitions share and talk about. I came up with plans for an exhibition of my art and Clare developed plans for the exhibition of craft and industry. Nerys, Clare and I then met again to share ideas.

We were getting there, we had our exhibition, but it wasn’t just one exhibition, it was three exhibitions, it had become a ‘textile takeover’. It was three exhibitions in one, the first was exploring contemporary textile art, the second was looking at home-made historic craft with items from the museum collection and the third was considering the local textile industry in Newcastle-under-Lyme. All were textile exhibitions, and all were related to how people from Newcastle-under-Lyme have used ‘textiles’ in different ways.

The next question was the title, we needed something that would bring the three exhibitions together, that showed the common thread between them all. We brainstormed over and over trying to find the common thread which was when we realised that was the perfect title ‘A Common Thread’.

It was then time to focus on bringing these ideas to life, selecting the items to be displayed, writing the interpretation and developing the curation of the three spaces. Do have a read of Clare’s recent blog post about her role in curating and preparing the Craft and Industry exhibitions (Read here).

The process from start to finish, from initial ideas to opening the doors was about 18 months in total and the project has been fully collaborative from start to finish, with myself, Nerys and Clare all bringing different skills, ideas and thoughts to the project.

Now, as the exhibition is drawing to a close, it feels quite a sad moment, as the close of exhibitions always do. But if you are reading this after the doors have closed for the final time, here is a little tour for posterity - 

The first exhibition; ‘Fine Art’, presents the colourful abstract fine art textiles from me - JPR Stitch (aka, Dr Jack Roberts), a fine artist born, raised and educated in Newcastle-under-Lyme and who still lives and works locally. 

The second exhibition; ‘Craft’, displays home-made textile artefacts selected from the Brampton Museum's collection showing how people from the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme have used textiles at home to create and embellish clothes, make artworks and express themselves through thread and fabric. 

The third exhibition; ‘Industry’, profiles the textile manufacturing heritage of the local area. 

And here is a walk around video - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Q8oleeV7eik

The question that is now beginning to enter my mind is ‘what will be the next collaboration between the Brampton and myself’? Who knows, but maybe in a few years we will be sharing news with you of our third collaboration.

‘A Common Thread’ at the Brampton Museum and Art Gallery, 20th September 2025 – 21st December 2025

You can find out more about Jack/JPR Stitch’s work on his website (www.jprstitch.com) or by following him on Instagram, which he uses as his daily diary (https://www.instagram.com/jpr_stitch/)

Thank you very much to Jack for writing this guest blog, we can recommend taking a look at his site and social media to see great foottage of him creating his artworks.