A Passion For Pattern

The textile designer Molly Mahon is sharing her enthusiasm for block printing through teaching, says Arabella Youens

- Arabella Youens

WHEN the staff at Charleston, the Sussex farmhouse that was the rural retreat of the Bloomsbury group, recently arranged a one-day workshop with printmaker Molly Mahon, it sold out within days. It’s the start of what Molly hopes will be a long relationship with the house. ‘It’s a dream come true for me. I’m obsessed with Charleston. every time I go, I have this almost impossible to-describe feeling of euphoria, bursting with excitement and filled with new ideas.’

It was in the middle of the First World War when, on Virginia Woolf’s recommendation, the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved into a dilapidated farmhouse in east Sussex. The artists transformed the house, covering the walls, shutters and door panels of the rooms in a riot of colour and established a meeting place for the extended family and friends of this unconventional and creative set for the next 64 years.