Emily Campbell’s Pemberton Qwilts form a contemporary textile backdrop to life at Harry CJ Wix. Harry caught up with Emily in her Deptford Studio
Harry: From an English degree to a pattern cutter at Jean Muir – how did that happen?
Emily: I've always sewn. My mother had a sewing machine permanently set up in her bedroom. She must have shown me how to use it because one day I just got on it and started to sew. Like every teenager I wanted more clothes, so I tried (not very successfully) to make things. But I did improve and as an undergraduate I got involved in the thespian scene, becoming the go-to costume maker for the Cambridge University Opera Society. I also used to dress a little ostentatiously in braid-edged ‘Chanel’ suits while most of my classmates wore jeans. Over time I became increasingly fascinated by how you transform flat material into three-dimensional things, and I signed up for a diploma in pattern cutting. In my last term at the London College of Fashion I spotted a job advertisement for a junior in the studio of Jean Muir, so I applied and I got it.
Harry: Your career later went in a different direction. How did you find yourself returning to textiles after a career across fashion, graphic design and cultural policy?
Emily: A few years later I went to Yale School of Art to do an MFA in Graphic Design, followed by several years in New York as a graphic designer at Pentagram. In 2012, many years afterwards, I went to an exhibition of Gee’s Bend quilts at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where I saw a piece made entirely of work clothes and denim overalls. On the spot I resolved to upcycle all the family’s jeans into my first patchwork quilt. It made me think about quilts as two-dimensional structure. Since then, my work has evolved to combine what I learned in pattern cutting with my experience in graphic design and even – though it might seem a stretch – as a student of literature
Harry: What fires your imagination about to quilt-making?
Emily: I had a desire to demonstrate some of the modernist values I’d learned as a designer – all the ways you can create tension on a two-dimensional surface: by contrasting colour, by the interplay of curves and perpendicular lines, by joining and separating forms, by occlusion, by bleeding off the edge or not…I'd often see quilts that I found a little insipid and they made me realise I had things I wanted to demonstrate about design in this medium. The fact that I choose solid colours rather than floral prints has become a way of distinguishing myself from lots of more traditional quiltmakers. I don't have anything against florals, they just don't help me achieve the language I'm interested in, which is strongly underpinned by shape and colour.
Harry: Literature is a theme running through your quilting portfolio – what inspires you?
Emily: I have an English degree and I’m an enthusiastic writer. Although I later transitioned to graphic design, writing and designing are actually quite similar activities for me. I’ve always been concerned with economy and conciseness and making things really pull together – and that's the same with a sentence, or with a two-dimensional composition such as the page of a book or a quilt. During lockdown I started drawing a modular alphabet that I could make in patchwork to integrate text into my work. I was listening to an (Anglican) Evensong service and the words ‘defend us from all perils and dangers of this night’ from the liturgy struck me as a wonderful message to sleep under. From that moment the Evensong Quilts evolved to include other words of comfort and protection from all kinds of sources, sacred and secular.
Harry: What are you working on at the moment?
Emily: I’ve just had the lucky opportunity to be an artist-in-residence in the Himalayas, so India is informing my thinking – particularly colour, and how to translate Mughal pattern motifs so I can construct them out of inserted patchwork.
Harry: What’s your favourite spot in Suffolk?
Emily: I’ve actually visited Suffolk relatively little, and although I’m a classical music enthusiast, until recently I’d not been to Aldeburgh, where Benjamin Britten lived and started a great music festival. But I totally get the magic of the place, the rural-coastal landscape, the atmosphere under a big sky and the deep traditions of making which are quite alive. I’m looking forward to extending my Suffolk intelligence and through the prism of Harry CJ Wix, allowing the place to influence what I myself make.
Harry: Is it hard to let the quilts go?
Emily: I do love the quilts and invest a huge amount of time in them, but by definition – or rather by default since they’re a big financial commitment – they go to a good home and I’m happy to know they’re giving pleasure somewhere out in the world.
