DOVECOT STUDIOS LIMITED - Key Persons
Get ahead of the crowd and visit the Alan Davie: Beginning of a Far-off World Exhibition before it opens to the public. Director Celia Joicey will guide you through rarely seen works from each decade of his career, as well as a tapestry and rug created in collaboration with Dovecot Studios. With Coffee and Pastry from Dovecot Studios Café afterwards
Alastair Salvesen is the Chairman of Dovecot Studios. He was awarded the CBE for services to the arts and charity in Scotland. Salvesen is a Chartered Accountant and a Director of Archangels. He is Chairman of Dawnfresh Seafoods Ltd, and a Director of several other companies. He is Deputy Chairman of the Fettes Trust and a past president of the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society and the British Frozen Foods Federation. He is also a Farmer and Forester and enjoys the countryside and developing young businesses in Scotland.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Dovecot Team
- Head of Finance & Resources
Alison Howe joined Dovecot as Head of Finance & Resources in July 2018. A Chartered Accountant, she has held financial posts within the accounting profession and commercial organisations, both UK and overseas.
She holds a Modern Languages degree in French and German, and also brings a wide-ranging background in corporate training.
Barnaby Barford is an artist who works primarily with ceramics to create unique narrative pieces. He works with both mass-market and antique found porcelain figurines, cutting up and exchanging elements or adding to them and repainting them, to create sculptures which are often sinister and sardonic but invariably humorous. With irony, he draws a portrait of our contemporary lives.
In Barford ™s world a kitsch figure of a 19th century peasant boy becomes a 20th century teenage thug in a hoodie; rustic maidens dancing on a bed of roses brandish guns; a charming scene of a Victorian family sharing a meal is undermined by the copious buckets of KFC fried chicken which they ™re laying into. Through his unique works, Barford explores all aspects of our society. Following in the tradition of Hogarth, Chaucer, Dickens and Shakespeare; with a dark sense of humour and satire, Barford's work explores and celebrates the human condition. This exhibition comes direct to Dovecot from MOCA The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art.
Barnaby Barford (b. 1977) graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2002. He has been the subject of several solo exhibitions in the UK, and has shown in exhibitions internationally. His work is part of both public and private collections.
Ben Hymers is a Weaver and Rug Tufter at Dovecot Studios.
Ben graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2014, earning a degree in Art History, and joined Dovecot Studios as an Apprentice Weaver shortly after. After completing his apprenticeship in 2017, Ben joined the weaving team as a Weaver.
Since joining Dovecot Studios, Ben has worked on numerous tapestry and rug-tufting projects, such as His Majesty King Charles III's ‘Abandoned Cottage on the Isle of Stroma, Caithness‘ , ‘Hearth Rug, The Golden Light' with Garry Fabian Miller and Sekai Machache's ‘Lively Blue‘ tapestry.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Member of the Dovecot Team
Celia Joicey joined Dovecot as Director in September 2017. She is a graduate of Cambridge University and the Royal College of Art. Prior to her appointment as Director of Dovecot Studios, she was Head of the Fashion and Textile Museum, and before that, Head of Publications at the National Portrait Gallery in London and Editor of the RSA Journal and Head of Publications at the Royal Society of Arts.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of St Andrews
Dr Brian Lang was born and educated in Edinburgh. He began his career as a social anthropologist, carrying out field research in Kenya and then lecturing for some years at Aarhus University, Denmark.
Returning to the UK, he held a number of senior posts in conservation and heritage, including Chief Executive and Deputy Chair of the British Library from 1991 to 2000. In 1997 he commissioned Dovecot to create the R B Kitaj tapestry, If Not, Not for the British Library.
Dr Lang was appointed Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of St Andrews in 2001 and served for eight years. He was Deputy Chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund, and Chair of its committee for Scotland, from 2005 to 2011. He was Chair of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra from 2008 to 2015. He is currently Chair of Edinburgh World Heritage, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Trustee of National Museums Scotland.
Dr Lang was awarded a CBE in the 2016 Birthday Honours List for services to the Arts, Heritage and Education.
Elaine Wilson is a Weaver and Rug Tufter at Dovecot Studios.
Elaine graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2000 with a BA (Hons) in Painting before continuing her studies with Stitched Textiles and Fashion Design at Edinburgh Telford College. She later earned a Master's qualification from Queen Margaret University in Cultural and Creative Enterprise.
In 2017, Elaine joined Dovecot Studios as an Apprentice Weaver and has since joined the Dovecot team as a Weaver and Rug Tufter upon completing her apprenticeship. Elaine has worked on numerous projects, including ‘Sea View‘ tapestry by JMW Turner, ‘Sharing A Warp' with Archie Brennan and ‘Hearth Rug, Gathered Gold Light' with Garry Fabian Miller.
Elizabeth Salvesen is a Director of Dovecot Studios and The Dovecot Foundation. She is a Patron of the Arts and in 1989 set up, with Alastair, The Alastair Salvesen Art Scholarship.
Emma Jo Webster is a Master Weaver at Dovecot Studios.
Emma Jo graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 1989 with a Tapestry degree and has a small studio in Glasgow where she continues working on personal projects.
Before joining Dovecot Studios, Emma Jo worked for West Dean Tapestry Studio in West Sussex on projects including the recreation of the 16th-century tapestry ‘The Hunt of The Unicorn' hung at Stirling Castle.
In February 2015, Emma Jo joined the weaving team at Dovecot Studios and has worked on numerous tapestry projects, including ‘The Caged Bird's Song‘ tapestry created in collaboration with Chris Ofili, ‘Minerva Protects Pax from Mars' by Leon Kossoff and Elizabeth Blackadder's ‘Flowers and Black Cat‘.
Job Titles:
- Exhibitions and Collections Coordinator
Jane Carey is Dovecot's Exhibitions and Collections Coordinator. She has an MA in Dress and Textile History from University of Glasgow, and has a background in designing and making costumes for theatre. Jane's areas of interest lie with textiles, particularly 16th Century textiles, textile making processes, and hand-crafts such as embroidery, lacemaking and tapestry. Jane joined Dovecot Studios in September 2021, where she facilitates the installation of Dovecot's exhibition programme, and is heading a cataloguing project for Dovecot's extensive collection of tapestry samples.
Over the past decade Lesley Knox has been chair and a non-executive director of a number of public and private companies, and also a trustee of the Federation of British Artists and the Museum of London.
From 2010 to 2019 Lesley was chair of V&A Dundee, the international design centre for Scotland on the Tay, and was also trustee of the National Galleries of Scotland. Her executive career was in in asset management and corporate finance, and she is also a textile artist. Lesley is currently a non-executive director of Legal & General Group plc and Genus Plc, and is a company director of Dovecot.
Louise Trotter is a Master Weaver and Rug Tufter at Dovecot Studios.
Louise graduated from Duncan Jordanstone College of Art and Design Dundee in 1999 with a degree in Constructed textiles, specialising in Tapestry. Previously, Louise worked for the West Dean Tapestry Studio and later aided the recreation of the ‘The Hunt of The Unicorn' tapestry hung at Stirling Castle.
In 2015, Louise joined the Dovecot weaving team and expanded her artistry to rug-tufting. There have been various projects Louise has worked on since joining Dovecot, including ‘The Caged Bird's Song‘ tapestry created in collaboration with Chris Ofili, ‘I'm Fine / Save Mi' rugs with Rachel MacLean and Victora Crowe's ‘Orcadian Series: Above Stromness‘ rug.
Job Titles:
- Master
- Member of the Dovecot Team
- Studio Manager
Naomi Robertson is a Master Weaver and Head of the Tapestry Studio at Dovecot Studios.
After graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 1990 with a BA(Hons) in Tapestry, Naomi joined Dovecot Studios as a Weaver and was appointed Studio Manager in 2013.
Naomi has worked on some of the studio's highest-profile design and weaving commissioned projects. These have included the R. B. Kitaj tapestry in the British Library, the Butterfly tapestry created in collaboration with Alison Watt for the Theatre Royal, and ‘Entanglement is More Than Blood' with Alberta Whittle for the 59th Venice Biennale. Naomi is also a member of the Incorporation of Weavers in Glasgow.
Terry and Angelika Macey have been designing and creating their range of unique women's clothes for over 30 years. Although based in Somerset in their dynamic working studio, they have a long relationship with Scotland and Edinburgh, both selling at designer-maker exhibitions and working directly with clients in private galleries.