Estimated reading time:10 minutes, 12 seconds
Creative recovery worker Kevan Tomlin in the Recycle & Stitch Studio at Caxton House. (c) KT
Everyone has a story. Creative recovery worker Kevan Tomlin explains why he loves working on community craft projects around Islington. Interview by Nicola Baird
After 35 years as a fashion designer Kevan Tomlin has found a role in Islington that he adores – answering his creative instincts and making him feel a part of the community. Kevan feels that getting work running creative projects in Islington was luck, as it happened only when he decided to do something for himself after the shock of being made redundant in 2018 from the company where he’d worked for 22 years.
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Luckily, Kevan knew he wanted to get involved with his local community. “I live in Islington, so I started volunteering at the mental health organisation I work for now, Hillside Clubhouse, initially helping out with their catering division and helping people learn how to cook, because I’ve always enjoyed cooking and helping others. Then a job came up at Hillside, I applied, was successful and began working for the charity three days a week. The centre had never facilitated creative workshops prior to me joining the recover team. My manager asked, “how do you feel about setting up some small workshops with members to make Christmas cards?” We now make cards throughout the year and sell at many events throughout Islington to help fundraise for the wide range of art and textile workshops I now deliver at the centre.”
Kevan Tomlin at Cally Park open gardens in early June selling cards for Hillside Clubhouse which has a fantastic reputation for helping people recover from mental health challenges. “They say everything happens for a reason. I think being completely burnt out after working all those years in fashion, made me realise it was time explore and think about using my skill set for a new creative career within my Islington community. I began working for the recovery team at Hillside, where I set up twice weekly creative workshops and a gardening group for members who access the services Hillside offers. Running parallel with Hillside, I began working with Caxton House Community Centre, in Archway helping to deliver community craft classes, then later setting up “The Recycle & Stitch Studio” where I teach people in the community through a range of sewing and textile classes. The wonderful thing about life now, is I feel completely immersed in my community I’m here today helping to fundraise for Hillside, working alongside The Friends of Caledonian Park and other partner groups I am involved with now. And that’s really nice.” (c) KT
Kevan’s creative community life has snowballed from there with fabulous quilt making, patchwork, upcycled clothes repair and mosaic projects.
At the same time Kevan began volunteering for Caxton House Community Centre, helping Rose Collins, who runs the weekly craft classes. “They’d never done any sewing and didn’t have a sewing machine, so they asked me if I’d be interested in doing a sewing project,” remembers Kevan. Of course, he was keen, created a patchwork sewing project that was accessible to the group, and even brought in his sewing machine. “We started delivering patchwork workshops, which everybody absolutely adored,” he says happily.
Not long after, Caxton House received some National Lottery funding and suggested he take on two rooms to make a studio and storeroom. Joking he says: “They thought they were the two worst rooms in the entire building, but I saw them and knew they could be perfect.” After some decorating Kevan is now proud that people think the studio have, “the nicest rooms in the entire building now. Everybody comes and sits in there because they find it really chilled and calm.”
“They say everything happens for a reason. And I think me being completely burnt out after working all those years in fashion was the right time for me to think about doing something else. I’m part of this community now, and it’s the next wonderful chapter in my life,” he adds.
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The mosaic in the Cally Park Avenue herb garden was designed by Kevan Tomlin with his creative group at Hillside Clubhouse, which is located nearby on North Road, N7: “We decided to create a mosaic that reflected the historical surroundings and promoted that Cally Park has an herb garden, for people in the community to enjoy and take herbs for free. We were inspired by the herbs grown in the garden, the colours the dramatic surroundings of the clocktower. We presented the design to the Friends of Caledonian Park and the park ranger and they absolutely loved it. It took us around six months to make, so we spent Wednesday afternoons mosaicking, carefully cutting the design from glass Vitreous and ceramic tile. Jeremy Corbyn, MP, came to unveil the finished piece alongside the Mayor of Islington who highlighted in importance of our Islington creative community. We had probably around 60 people from our community attend the unveiling with was wonderful. We also presented an exhibition of the process and timeline from the very first drawings right through to the finished mosaic, we even had a replica cake of the mosaic made by Janet who is a colleague at Hillside Clubhouse who manages the catering business that we run at the charity. Everybody loves the mosaic, residents that live around here, often stop me in the streets and say, “that mosaic’s beautiful”- it’s so rewarding doing these lovely community-based projects.” (c) NB for Islington Faces
Places Kevan Tomlin loves in Islington
- The borough: “I was born up north, but I’ve always lived in Islington as an adult. I find Islington people very open. Now I work and live in my Islington Community, within walking distance of both my jobs, I sometimes feel I live in a village. Immersed in my community, I feel people are very open to creativity, interesting ideas, talent and passion for the work you do, people feel connected, they embrace it.”
- Caledonian Park: “You always feel welcomed here and feel part of it.”
- Caxton House Community Centre, Archway – A vibrant community hub and charity with an amazing range of activities for the community. This year they are celebrating their 50th anniversary, and where we will be creating “The Colossal Caxton Quilt” to cover the St John’s Way side of the building which was opened in 1976.
- Second Chance Charity Shop, Located on the beginning of St Johns Way (7-9) in Archway. I shouldn’t be telling you this… but it’s quite possibly the best charity shop in Islington. I love having a rummage in there with its reasonably priced pre-owned clothing, great textiles and ceramics. I’ve found some real treasures in there over the years! I’m currently working on an arts project with Caxton House where we are making boxed framed dioramas of local places of interest in Archway for their 50th Anniversary weekend from 29-30 August – I am re-creating the Second Chance charity shop in a 3D boxed artwork!
- Candid Cafe & Arts Spaces – The cafe is a bit of a bohemian hidden gem, located behind Angel tube station, it’s known for its quirky living-room atmosphere, a chilled place to meet friends and enjoy their delicious (and reasonably priced) Mediterranean inspired menu. After you can wander around the various art spaces and exhibitions to be completely inspired!
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The Daniella Memorial Garden Quilt (c) KT
Memory quilt
At Hillside Clubhouse charity Kevan is part of a team that help people overcome the barriers of mental health by doing holistic creative workshops. “We cover things like art, crafts (papier-mâché, decoupage) and we make cards. I also teach textiles and work on projects like crochet knitting and patchwork. We’re currently working on a memorial quilt that is being made as a love letter to one of our members, Daniella, who sadly passed away in 2023.”
Daniella used to help Kevan deliver many of the creative workshops at Hillside Clubhouse. “We’re using many of materials that she had, or were unfinished, and creating a new quilt with our group entitled ‘Daniella Memorial Garden Quilt’. It’s a lovely, meaningful project that will eventually become permanent exhibition in the centre.”
The Daniella Memorial quilt is 1.5m x 2m (so biggish!) But some of Kevan’s quilts are on a far grander scale – you can see a larger scale community quilt hanging in the foyer at Caxon House Community Centre where his Recycle and Stitch Studio is based and where Kevan teaches people in the community how to mend and alter clothes, garment make and learn a multitude of patchwork techniques.
“A lot of our materials are donated or they’re recycled. A lot of the fabrics that we use were once clothing, so we upcycle clothing as well using recycled fabrics for our sewing projects” says Kevan explaining how the sewing class created ‘The Caxton House Community Quilt.
“At one of our Tuesday craft groups we asked all the learners to bring in three pieces of unwanted clothing to turn into a community quilt. Everybody did a block of their own which was to depict what they like about coming to the community centre. For example, at Caxton some people learn how to cook, or volunteer in the community garden and liked it, so they depicted the enjoyment of cooking or being in nature at the centre. Other participants celebrated making friends or being part of the craft group by illustrating some of their favourite creative activities,” he adds. And because everybody used everybody else’s fabrics in the project, the quilt had a real sense of co-production, giving the project a strong sense of community and meaning.
This outsize, collosal quilt is going to cover Caxton House in late July as part of the community centre’s 50th anniversary celebrations (c) KT
The big cover up
However fabulous Kevan’s quilts sound, nothing is surely going to beat the current quilt making project to celebrate Caxton House’s 50th anniversary this year as the plan is to partially cover the whole building, alongside St John’s Way in a patchwork quilt.
Yes, patchwork.
“It’s a wonderful mid-century, brutalist building, so it’s a really fab building to work on. For the last three months we’ve been delivering Saturday workshops where we’ve invited people from the community, using 12 sewing machines, to sew a big block. We will eventually sew these blocks together to cover the building in one big patchwork quilt for five weeks,” says Kevan.
Covering a building is a first for him and Rose, but they’ve had lots of advice from Quilt Club 7Sisters, Haringey about technical requirements, installation and fire resistance.
That’s a quilt that will definitely be something to look out for when you’re using the 210 bus. The Colossal Caxton Quilt is scheduled to be installed late July and will remain installed as part of the Caxton House 50th anniversary celebrations taking place on Saturday 29th August for their Local Stories and Gallery Day” and Sunday 30th for their Family Fete.
Islington Faces wishes Kevan, our friends at Caxton House, and everyone else involved in the 50th celebration, the best of luck as they finish off the massive quilt. It looks set to be a wonderful Islington spectacle.
Find out more
- More about Hillside Club House, N7 on t https://www.hillsideclubhouse.org.uk/and see on insta @HillsideClubHouse
- Caxton House summer weekend 50th celebration is 29-30 August. Find out more about Caxton House, N19 on https://caxtonhouse.org/
- Also follow on Insta @Recycleandstitchstudio
Over to you
If you’d like to nominate someone to be interviewed who grew up, lives or works in Islington, or suggest yourself, please let me know, via nicolabaird dot green at gmail dot com. If you enjoyed this post you might like to look at the A-Z index, or search by interviewee’s roles or Meet Islingtonians to find friends, neighbours and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. Nicola
