With & Without Diana X Beer Can Votives - Giant doodled Sequins!

Join artists Rachelle Francis and Billie M Vigne to create glittering, trailing offerings of Beer Can Votive sequins to Rachelle's project and posthumous collaboration with her mother- With & Without Diana.

In this 2.5 hour workshop, split between Rachelle and Billie’s studios, we will be creating shimmering sequins made from discarded drinks cans to adorn Rachelle’s Mind to Stitch cloth books. These books will go on to be exhibited next year at the Beaney, House of Art and Knowledge in Canterbury alongside Rachelle and Diana’s works.

Beginning with a little introduction to Diana’s incredible artwork, Billie and Rachelle will touch on the crossovers and divergences between our practices and the works of her late mum Diana, that will take us through ideas of memorial, crafting as a mode of archiving, catharsis and escape and reuse/reworking.

In Billie’s metalworking studio, we will deconstruct discarded drinks cans, making our own sequins as votive offerings and embossing them with mindful doodled marks, following on from Diana’s methodologies. Exploring the parameters of what constitutes a sequin, and experimenting with materials; cutting, piercing and stitching with wire.

Rachelle will guide us through various methods of attaching the sequins onto cloth book pages (pre-made from repurposed materials; printed with patterns from Diana's archive). Slowly stitching with salvaged scraps, we will experiment with couching; applique or pocket making, adorning our unique cloth book page with our own meditiative marks.

With & Without Diana

Rachelle is a textile and social practice artist. Originally from a fashion background (18 years working as a couture embroidery designer for clients incl. Alaia and Chanel), the death of her mother Diana in 2019 and the uncovering of her hidden archive of over 1000+ drawings, textiles and sculptures prompted Rachelle to create the With & Without Diana project. Aided by Arts Council England funding, this creative health project shares Diana's archive; story and artistic processes to help destigmatize, connect, support and inspire others. Rachelle also creates textile artworks in response to Diana's archive - posthumous conversations in cloth; an exploration of the connections - and cuts - in a relationship affected by a mother's mental health illness and subsequent addiction. An artist's book; embroideries by Rachelle; and Diana's entire archive are all under proposal for acquisition by the Wellcome Collection.

Income raised from workshops will support the With & Without Diana workshop programme (with charities across Kent, Dover and Medway) and exhibition sharing art’s ability to support wellbeing (Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, Canterbury 2026).

Beer Can Votives

Billie M Vigne is an artist and metalsmith based in Kent whose work revolves around the temperamental intricacies of chronic illness. In 2022, Billie began The Beer Can Votive project; a travelling forum of embossing workshops in which people make ex votos/votive offerings from recycled drinks cans. The project focuses on imbuing the metal with feelings, sensations and stories that speak of our own physiological experiences, challenging the historical narrative of their use as curative talismans.