Cloth and memory: Salts Mill

Salts Mill is the venue for the Cloth and memory exhibition later this year (July–August) and so far I’ve just blogged about the room for my site specific work. Concentrating on this unrestored room though gives completely the wrong impression of the rest of the Mill. Salts Mill is a huge, vibrant site. It contains some lovely shops including a kitchen shop ‘The home’ pictured above, as well as an excellent poster and book shop (see below), Carlton antiques, Trek and trail, Zeba home furnishings, and the Kath Libbert jewellery gallery.

In the jewellery gallery I was delighted to find the work of the lacemaker, Blanka Sperkova, who knits fine wire to produce three dimensional pieces. I first saw her work in Prague where it was hung in the gallery to rotate slowly, producing interesting contrasts and shadows. I had not seen her smaller jewellery pieces before so that was an interesting find.

As well as the shops, some of which are galleries in their own right, there are also two large galleries, the 1853 Gallery and Gallery 2. They include works by David Hockney (who was born in Bradford) and many other artists. So there is plenty to do and see and when you’re tired of shopping and browsing the galleries you can have a meal in the Salts diner or a coffee in the espresso bar.