We regret to announce that Peter Collingwood will not be attending the conference due to health issues.
However, we do have a special event planned featuring Peter and his work.
Peter Collingwood was born in Marylebone, London, in 1922. His mother was a classics scholar, and his father professor of physiology at St Mary's Hospital Medical School. Peter himself trained to be a physician, and while serving as an army physician he came in contact with weaving and looms in the occupational department of the hospital in the south of the UK where he had been stationed. Ever the inventor and tinkerer, Peter built a small loom for himself and started weaving. Sometime later, having left the army and the medical profession, and on the advice of George Maxwell, one of the premier loom builders in the UK at the time, Peter contacted the noted weaver and weaving teacher Ethel Mairet, asking if she would take him on as a pupil. Mrs. Mairet once referred to Peter as "the dullest person she had ever met," a criticism that Peter believes was well deserved at the time, as he was by far the least schooled in weaving of the many students she had taught.
However, he persevered, learned from many others, endured the derision of those who could hardly believe that one would choose to be a weaver, and vowed to make a living as an artist and a weaver. He set up a workshop in London, and stamped onto his stationery "Peter Collingwood, Rug Weaver." He wove six days a week and found time to create sample books that he would take to shops that he hoped would carry his work. He gradually also included teaching (much more lucrative) in his punishing schedule, and his determination eventually paid off, allowing him to make a living for himself and his family as an artist and a weaver.
Peter is the author or co-author of many books, including books on rug weaving, sprang, tablet weaving, and ply-split braiding, and he was honored in the UK in May 1999 when a postage stamp of one of his Macrogauzes was issued.
web site: http://www.petercollingwood.co.uk