Sussex Modernism: Retreat and Rebellion a major new exhibition, is created by the Bulldog Trust in partnership with nine Sussex museums and galleries, including West Dean College.

Creating Your Design Business

Our first assignment in the West Dean furniture conservation program: hand-plane a square piece of wood into a tapered column, break it, and put it back together.

Last winter, a few of us from the books department decided to go for a little hike one weekend and found ourselves walking through some woodland about half an hour from the school. One of the group came across an antler, which she wasn't too keen on keeping, so I thought I'd take it back to school and have a go at making some custom bone folders.

The first time I entered the Old Music Room at West Dean College, the portrait of the poet, Dame Edith Sitwell, also known as Sibyl, (1936-7), painted by Pavel Tchelitchew, struck me immediately, not least because her larger than life figure loomed ominously out of the darkness, but because she was instantly recognisable from her distinctive elegant hands and long Plantagenet nose.