WOVEN by Weftfaced

This June we are pleased to present Woven by Atelier Weftfaced as part of Sussex Craft Week from 20 to 28 June at the Crypt Gallery, Ford Road, Arundel - see our Exhibitions page for more details.

Katharine Swailes and Caron Penney in the Studio [photo credit Steve Speller]

“The weft makes the picture on the front of the tapestry. The warp is hidden, it’s the plain vertical thread through which the coloured (horizontal) weft is woven.”

Weftfaced is a small artist led atelier in the heart of Sussex keeping the craft of hand woven tapestry and textiles thriving.

Caron Penney and Katharine Swailes, two leading practitioners in contemporary woven practice, established the studio in 2013. Since then they have been making tapestries to commission for a number of artists including: British abstract painter, Gillian Ayres RA, Dame Tracey Emin and artist & musician Martin Creed.

The atelier stands for quality, individuality and exquisitely crafted textiles which offer longevity and uniqueness.

"As weavers, we are time travellers, following a path that has been trodden for millennia, in the same way but ever different."

In Weftfaced, Caron Penney and Katharine Swailes have a background in the arts, contemporary and traditional textiles, while sharing a special interest in the fine arts.

They want to explore and contribute to the future of tapestry weaving thorugh their work and approach to technique, design and materials.

Caron Penney

Caron Penney in her studio in February 2026 with some works for Woven. [photo by Zimmer Stewart]

Caron Penney trained at Middlesex University and coupled this with twenty years experience at the West Dean Tapestry Studio, concluding her tenure with four years as the Studio Director and latterly as a consultant.

The art of tapestry weaving is one which Caron Penney has developed over a long career. This has involved the creation of artwork for artists such as Tracey Emin, Martin Creed, John Hubbard and Gillian Ayres. Penney contributed to the book ‘Tapestry - a woven narrative’ published in 2011 and Authenticity and Replication: the ‘Real Thing’ in Art and Art Conservation, in 2014.

She studied Constructed Textiles at Middlesex University, graduating in 1993. Soon after this she began work at the West Dean Tapestry Studio where in 2009 she became the Studio Director.

Now Caron Penney creates her own works as well as working on commissions, she both interprets the work of other artists and her own designs. She enjoys the narrative which tapestry has historically depicted. This combined with the use of the artist journal, creates a dialogue of notations which are developed and precisely woven in a carefully documented and ironic comment of life.

Caron Penney's work has always been concerned with patterns, numbers and grids, most recently this has also included text.

Caron Penney often gives courses in hand woven tapestry.

She has been featured in House & Garden magazine in November 2017 and Crafts Magazine in July/Aug 2018. She was a selected artist for the Royal Academy of Arts, Summer Exhibition in 2014 and 2020 and has exhibited widely.

Caron Penney has exhibited widely and has works in numerous private and public collections, including the Rumi Foundation which purchased The Red Line at Collect in 2022, in support of artists who create work of important social significance and social understanding.

Katharine Swailes

Katharine Swailes in her studio in February 2026 with some works for Woven. [photo by Zimmer Stewart]

Katharine Swailes' love of construction is central to her textile practices firstly in historic costume for film and theatre with the costumiers Cosprop. Moving on to study tapestry at West Dean College followed by research and commission based weaving in the professional studio. She specialises in both conventional flat wall works and smaller three-dimensional, sculptural pieces using gold thread as well as twisted paper yarn.

Katharine Swailes studied at Carlisle College of Art and Design. She graduated in

1982 and then spent fifteen years working as a costumier and embellisher, for

theatre, cinema and television.

It was the constructive nature of woven tapestry that inspired her move to the

medium in 1998, at West Dean College.

Katharine Swailes dyes her wool herself, en plein air in buckets “Sometimes in winter, the yarn freezes when you hang it to dry.”

A selection of smaller Glyps and Loops works by Katharine Swailes in her studio

Her current Colourfield work is concerned with the landscape and light, influenced by ling winters and low light in Cumbria, where she grew up.

She also creates 'Glyphs and Loops', three dimensional sculptural/construction pieces, using hand woven tapestry.

Katharine Swailes was shortlisted for the Cordis prize in 2016 and 2019, Kate Derum Award, 2019, Theo Moorman Award, recipient 2016.

She has shown at the V&A Museum, Saatchi Gallery and the Fleming Collection. Her work is held in private and national collections, nationally and internationally. Most recently her work, Stillness, was acquired from Cavaliero Finn, for the V&A at Collect in 2026 at Somerset House.

Black Cat by Tracey Emin - West Dean Tapestry Studio

The West Dean Tapestry Studio is at the back of a grand Jacobean manor house, which was once the home of art collector and patron Edward James. His collection of mainly surrealist art has now largely been sold, but the Mae West Lips Sofa that he commissioned from Dali is still there, along with a Lobster Telephone.

One of only two tapestry studios in the country, West Dean received its first commission in 1976 when Mary Moore asked its weavers to make a tapestry of one of her father's drawings. In the end they completed 23 tapestries of Henry Moore's work.

Black Cat, hand woven tapestry (215 x 178cm) by Caron Penny and Philip Sanderson from an original painting by Tracey Emin

In 2011 Tracey Emin, like Moore, chose one of her existing paintings (Black Cat) for a tapestry commission. Two West Dean weavers, Caron Penney and Philip Sanderson, worked for six months to complete the work.

Caron Penney said at the time "I have always loved Tracey Emin's imagery, and thoujght that because she has been involved with textiles, she would have sympathy for what I do".

Many of Tracey Emin's early 1990's works were what she calls her 'Blanket' pieces.

See Emin's Hotel International (257 x 275 cm), an appliqued blanket with details in text on her family history.

Despite this, initially, Tracey Emin was not sure questioning the artistic merit in a copied work. Caron Penney was able to persuade her by using the examples of the Henry Moore tapestries decades earlier:

“If it were just going to be a colour reproduction,” Moore said at the time, “I wouldn’t be interested. The beauty of tapestry is that it is different, an interpretation, and that, to me, is the excitement and the pleasure.”

So the Emin commission proceeded, “Tracey wanted it to feel like a tapestry,” Penney says. “She didn’t want people to look at it from afar and think that it was a painting.”

Tapestries can be woven sideways and upside down, so the picture is turned 90 degrees on the loom. Caron Penney wove the bottom half, Philip Sanderson the top. If they used mismatching yarns, they would end up with an ugly seam through the work, so they talk through each colour change. “If we weren’t professionals, it could go terribly wrong,” Penney says. "It’s all to do with good communication.”

Black Cat is not, of course, a picture of a black cat. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s short horror story about a murderer tormented by guilt, the top layer is a demonic portrait of Emin in a long black dress. Underneath is a figure crouching, with the words “things I say NO to”. It’s one of Emin’s favourite paintings and took her seven years to complete.

“A lot of people see tapestry as medieval,” said Caron Penney “The rest think that it is ladies’ sewing. These sorts of tapestries were made by men originally. The interpretation in making them is delicate, but not the activity itself. Weaving is very physical. Your hands get worn doing it, it’s exhausting winding down the loom, and your back must be strong because you end up sitting for long periods.”

The Black Cat tapestry has involved 1,820 hours of drawing, stitching and dyeing. Progress was slow, with only a small amount being woven a day. Caron Penney preferred accuracy over speed: “We are always standing back to look at the tapestry. If something needs to come out, it will come out and be rewoven,”

The final piece was first exhibited at Collect 2011 at the Saatchi Gallery, and is not for sale.

Recreating The Mystic Hunt of the Unicorn - West Dean Tapestry Studio

The Mystic Hunt of the Unicorn, recreated 15th century tapestry at Stirling Castle by West Dean Tapestry Studio

Stirling Castle, home to the Scottish Kings, now serves as a living history museum.  In the archives of King James V, there are details of a series of tapestries depicting the History of the Unicorn, but these have since been lost, most likely from the Scottish King’s ascension to the English throne after the death of Elizabeth I.  

No record remains of the iconography of these tapestries, so as Historic Scotland became interested in replacing the set for educational and heritage purposes, they turned to a surviving series about the unicorn – The Hunt of the Unicorn, housed at the Cloisters.

The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries are steeped in myth and allegory, not only the elaborate rituals of the medieval hunt and court etiquette but pagan and Christian iconography. Pictorial tapestries were the most expensive and highly prized of the decorative arts in the Middle Ages and tapestries were the ultimate status symbol denoting wealth and importance.

2 million pounds and 14 years later, the set was completely rewoven, with completion of the project in 2014. Eighteen weavers from across the world participated, with master weavers, including Katharine Swailes, from West Dean Tapestry Studio in Sussex and Ruth Jones from Canada leading the project. Using detailed scanned images from the original panels, the team created line drawing cartoons to keep their recreations as accurate as possible, including details in shading and character position.

The Mystic Hunt of the Unicorn created by weavers at West Dean Tapestry Studio was unveiled in June 2015 at Stirling Castle. The tapestry is the final in a series of seven works hand woven over 14 years and commissioned by Historic Scotland to recreate The Unicorn Tapestries (1495 - 1505) held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as part of a refurbishment at Stirling Castle.

The West Dean weavers worked in two teams: one based at the College in Chichester; the other in a purpose-built studio at Stirling Castle. Studio Master Weaver Katharine Swailes worked on the whole new series The Hunt of the Unicorn project from the beginning. Swailes previously worked with Tracey Emin on Rose Virgin (2011) and further significant commissions.

Katharine Swailes said "The opportunity to work on such a unique project was not expected, and was full of surprise and learning. Stepping in the path that weavers had taken 500 years before was thrilling, to investigate not only the image but the working practice of a weaver at the loom. It was an unique project and I am so pleased to have been part of it."

Royal inventories at Stirling Castle show that James V owned over 100 tapestries, however there is no record of what happened to them. The tapestries woven by West Dean Tapestry Studio are part of a project to recreate the interiors of the palace to how they may have looked in the 1540's when it was home to Mary, Queen of Scots, and daughter of James V.

The venture is the biggest weaving project undertaken in the UK for 100 years and brought together an international team of weavers. The bespoke palette of colours and tones for the yarns were dyed in West Dean studio's dye laboratory. The artworks were deconstructed and the most important colours identified and matched using the studio's recipe books as a reference. It was essential to have all the yarns dyed at the outset in order for the weavers to begin to work out the different combinations of threads that made up the palette of mixes for weaving.

Martin Creed Costumes

In addition to creating original woven tapestry works for conceptual artist, Martin Creed, Katharine Swailes and Caron Penney have also made a number of costumes for his performance works.

These include hats, shoes, dresses and more.

Friends of Australian Tapestry Workshop Lecture - 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-vdqpW2TNY

The Friends of the Australian Tapestry Workshop (ATW) hosted a lecture with Caron Penney and Katharine Swailes in April 2021 as part of their International Speaker Series.

They talk about their work in detail, how it has evolved and the inspirations behind it, as well as one or two commisssions.

This series was created to celebrate the lead up to the ATW’s prestigious small tapestry prize, the 2021 Kate Derum Award and Irene Davies Emerging Artist Award for Small Tapestries. Celebrating 10 years since the Kate Derum Award was established the tapestry weavers selected for this speaker series have been winners or finalists of either the Kate Derum Award or Irene Davies Emerging Artist Award for Small Tapestries. This series of lectures celebrates the diversity and scope of contemporary tapestry practice worldwide in anticipation of the awards. 

Held every two years by the ATW, these unique awards celebrate creativity and excellence in contemporary tapestry, and are the most prestigious small tapestry awards in Australasia.

The Kate Derum Award for Small Tapestries honours Kate Derum and her significant contribution to tapestry as an artist, weaver, teacher, mentor and former Deputy Director/Studio Manager of the ATW. Generously supported by Susan Morgan, the award is open to all professional Australian and International tapestry artists.

Katharine Swailes won the Kate Derum award in 2019.

Manhattan Exhibition, Zimmer Stewart Gallery

We at Zimmer Stewart Gallery first showed Weftfaced, in 2015 in an exhibition called 'Manhattan'.

Caron Penney and Katharine Swailes had travelled to New York many times over the previous decade, and having just left the West Dean Studio two years earlier, this was an influential time for them both. They were inspired by the urban landscape, street architecture, museum collections and natural environment. Mapping this journey through photography, note taking and sketches to their resulting work in woven textiles.

Image above left Crossing Intersection by Caron Penny

Image above right Looking Downtown by Katharine Swailes

‘Manhattan’ was the beginning of a new chapter for the artists, one which has involved shedding the past and emerging into new avenues.

Alongside the Manhattan works, we showed Tirra Lirra a hand woven tapestry based on a painting by Gillian Ayres is 122 x 102 cm. Caron Penney was commissioned by The Campaign for Wool to fabricate this piece in 2014.

The painting chosen by the artist to be rendered into weave was shown at the

Summer Exhibition 2014 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

The painting lent itself to the subtlety of blended threads, which represent each brush stroke that the artist places onto the canvas.

The tapestry was first shown by the Campaign for Wool (CfW) at their exhibition 'Wool Interiors Collection', at Southwark Cathedral in “Wool Week” in October 2014. It was then shown at Collect 2015, this May at the Saatchi Gallery, London.

In the decade since Manhattan, both artists have developed their own individual styles further: more geometrix and text based for Caron Penney and landscape based 'Colourfield' works for Katharine Swailes, in addition to her 'Glyphs and Loops' 3d sculptural pieces.

The Language of Weaving - Petersfield Museum

This major museum exhibtion in 2024 was a kind of retrospective of both Caron Penney's and Katharine Swailes' work and their lives together.

The exhibition included 15 woven tapestries alongside drawings, sketchbooks and materials. Katharine Swailes presented two series of works, Glyphs and Loops and Colourfield tapestries and Caron Penney presented her abstract grid and text-based work.

WOVEN exhibition for Sussex Art Week

Sussex Craft Week, which runs from 20 to 28 June, is about celebrating excellence in craftsmanship and recognising Sussex’s place at the hub of the contemporary craft revival. 

Our exhibition, Woven, with Caron Penney and Katharine Swailes will include recent handwoven tapestry.

Some examples of works by Caron Penney for WOVEN:

Hidden, hand woven tapestry

Cessation, hand woven tapestry

You See But You Do Not See, hand woven tapestry

NO, hand woven tapestry

Some examples of works by Katharine Swailes for WOVEN:

Fall Light Into Winter, hand woven tapestry, 110 x 52 cm

Seven Days, hand woven tapestry, 48 x 27 cm

Pause Shifting, hand woven tapestry, 47 x 46 cm

Into Pause, hand woven tapestry 'Loop', 10 x 10 x 10cm

Presented in the intimate Crypt Gallery at Arundel Cemetery, the exhibition brings together new works by both artists, exploring structure, colour and the material presence of woven surface. The scale and stillness of the space offer a contemplative setting in which tapestry can be experienced as both image and object.

On 21 June visitors can attend the artists’ Open Studio in Barlavington near Petworth.

From 25–28 June Caron Penney will lead a handwoven tapestry course at Arundel Museum.

See weftfaced.com for further details and to book the course.

The venue is the Crypt Gallery, Ford Road, Arundel, BN18 9EA (What3Words: brain.verve.electrode).

Click here to see works by both artists for Woven.