𝒸. 𝓂𝒶𝑒 𝒷𝓁𝑜𝑜𝓂

“I’m from a pretty proletariat household, as you can imagine. We don’t have much regard for hierarchies of materials. It goes back quite a few generations; my mum was an amazing craftsperson with pretty much anything she took her hand to; she would construct cardboard box tool organisers for her ceramic tools, but she didn’t actually like doing ceramics – she just liked making cardboard boxes. Then, my grandma was a textile worker – a pattern cutter in the textile district of London. It keeps going back like that with various technically-skilled roles. The attitude was very much, Why would you buy something when you could make it, even if it meant making a slightly more rubbish version of it. As much as I’ve tried to avoid making work about my mother and grandma, they are very much present in there, guiding my hand. These creative, talented, skilled – though weird is the most operative term for them – and sometimes difficult women who had difficult lives, and who didn’t find it easy to relate to the world they were forced to inhabit. Enough time has passed that the world has evolved so that I can exist comfortably within it and make things for my own pleasure, for making’s sake, they never got to have that. I’ve always made things for no reason, although I wasn’t very good at it; I was never formally skilled at anything, but I just liked art and kept making it. Thought it was more about the playful narrative of the objects and how they’d sit next to each other in my world than the things themselves.” C.Mae Bloom (@maewhen ) speaks with Alma Feigis (@almafeigis ) about abandoned objects and their imagined pasts, the guiding hand of the women in her family, and the unresolved tension between labour and pleasure in the act of making. Photography by Alma Feigis

Time flies! Today and tomorrow are the last days to see Borrowers. In this video, Mae talks through the ideas behind ‘Time as exchange (optimism-pessimism, industry-hobby)’, 2025. We hope you enjoy it! Time as exchange (optimism-pessimism, industry-hobby), 2025 Assorted found objects, most are tools of textile craft or garmentmaking, tick and sweep clock motors @maewhen Videography: Jed Welland

A close look at the individual sculptures presented in the three Constellation groups shown as part of Borrowers. Constellations present ensembles of objects embodied with meaning and life stories, each part being its own separate form but understood differently when observed in dialogue with its surrounding objects. This term is borrowed from ‘constellation narratives’, a literary device that links multiple stories into a coherent storyline to reveal a deeper contextual knowledge. The objects are chosen incidentally with objects of resonance. Coloured cellophane chocolate, a travel sewing kit, small embroidered felt bags. Some things found at the same time, in the same box, at the same junk shop, leading to the presumption that they were made by the same person. @maewhen

C. Mae Bloom’s ongoing series of sculpture, ‘Somebody else’s song’, presents personal collections of related objects discovered by the artist and preserved intact, in the conditions of how they were found. For example, the gold and silver button collection is displayed in the organisational pattern it was displayed in for sale, and permanently secured in place by the artist. The collection of trim came with no container, so the artist used a box found at the same house clearance stall to hold them together, imagining they came from the same home, experienced the same touch of the same hand, so it seemed the same act of simple, sensible thrift ... The scrap wool collection is kept in an exact reproduction of the original box it was found in at the second hand market. In making these works, the moment of time is preserved when the objects change: from a functional ready to be used group of things, to a practical gesture in a fossilised state, saved for a future that never came. Intention is suspended, plans not fulfilled… nevertheless the instinct to keep, to hold on, to give a place, to record time is continued. C. Mae Bloom’s solo exhibition Borrowers continues through 9 May. Somebody else’s song, number 5 (ribbons), 2026
Ribbons, strings, cardboard box, paper, confetti
10 x 34 x 22 cm Somebody else’s song, number 1 (paper piecing), 2025
Cardboard, textiles, tracing paper, pins, found box
6.5 x 15.5 x 21 cm Somebody else’s song, number 2 (trim), 2025
Textile trims, found cardboard box
6 x 28 x 15 cm Somebody else’s song, number 3 (gold and silver fancy buttons), 2026
Buttons, cardboard box, printed paper
2.5 x 13.5 x 8.5 cm Somebody else’s song, number 6 (Christmas cards), 2026
Found letters and cards, string
17 x 20 x 5.5 cm Somebody else’s song, number 7 (friends), 2026
Found toys
19 x 12 x 9 cm Somebody else’s song, number 4 (wool), 2026
Scrap yarn, cardboard box, printed magazine pages
11.5 x 32 x 19 cm @maewhen

Happy Easter Monday. C. Mae Bloom’s show will reopen on Wednesday 8th April. C. Mae Bloom Fortune means a chance, 2026 Eggshells, watercolour, acrylic 15 x 13 x 8 cm @maewhen

12 bronze sculptures by C. Mae Bloom in her solo exhibition ‘Borrowers’ which continues til 9 May. Open Wed to Sat 11-6pm. @maewhen First Aid, 2026 Cast bronze, fabric, ribbon, key, scissors 14 x 10 x 0.5 cm Pearl and Shell, 2026 Cast bronze, nail polish, antique hat pins, tinsel 21 x 14 x 2 cm Black Midi, 2026 Cast bronze, felt tip pen, nail polish, glass button, safety pins 6 x 4 x 0.5 cm A forward motion in any direction, 2025 Cast bronze, felt tip pen, glass bugle beads, silver plated copper wire, nail varnish 5.5 x 5.5 x 1 cm In-between, 2026 Cast bronze, felt tip pen, nail polish 10.5 x 7.5 x 0.5 cm Preparation means perseverance, 2026 Cast bronze, organza ribbon, drill bit, nylon sewing thread, repair thread card, cotton bud 12.5 x 7.5 x 0.5 cm Scattergraph, 2026 Cast bronze, felt tip pen, drawing pins, indicator pin 8.5 x 7 x 1 cm The Glow, 2025 Cast bronze, glow-in-the-dark nail polish, other assorted nail polish 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.2 cm Auld Lang Shame, 2026 Cast bronze, marker pen, nail polish, raffia, 13a fuse, craft wire, game counter 20 x 9.5 x 0.5 cm Note, 2025 Cast bronze, nail polish 5.5 x 5 x 0.2 cm Overclocked, 2026 Cast bronze, felt tip pen, glass bugle beads, craft wire, glass headed sewing pins 8 x 8.5 x 0.5 cm Pocket protector, 2026 Cast bronze, organza, thread, pencil, screw, label 9 x 10 x 0.5 cm

C. Mae Bloom ‘Borrowers’ is open!! Wed to Sat 11-6 through 9 May. 💝💝@maewhen Installation photos by Damian Griffiths

diary

Opening Tonight! C. Mae Bloom ‘Borrowers’. All welcome 5-8pm. Somebody else’s song, number 7 (friends) 2026 Found toys 19 x 12 x 9 cm @maewhen

C. Mae Bloom ‘Borrowers’ opens next week. Come by 5-8pm Wednesday 11 March! Artificial snowball, 2026 Modern replica of traditional porcelain ‘Snowball’ pot, crochet cotton roll, pleated foil textile motif, sequins, glass bugle and seed beads, drawing pin. 6 x 8 x 6cm  It doesn’t matter all the time, 2026 craft wire, bunny appliqué cut from garment, cardboard packaging, cotton pearled thread, glass beads, aluminium wire, pearl bead, apple sequin, mouse eraser, party popper packaging. 13 x 9 x 11cm @maewhen

Two weeks til the opening of C. Mae Bloom ‘Borrowers’ 💞 Join us for the opening on 11 March 5-8pm. Exhibition runs 12 March - 9 May.    C. Mae Bloom (b. 1992, Bath, UK) graduated from Royal College of Art Sculpture in 2025. She draws from long familial traditions of making and adjacent interests in craft and labour to define her experimental sculpture practice, a compelling constellation of ideas, interests and material inquiry.  Placing no greater or less value on what she has made to what she has found, her highly articulate sculptures are an inspection of everyday material culture in our present era of innovation and object superabundance as much as they are acts of analogue wonder: entrancing, exquisite sequences of objects where the found and the handmade are one and complete.  Her work asks us to consider on the one hand, if the ordinary can be extraordinary, if close enough attention is paid? On the other hand, it interrogates a question of value: what makes a thing special? Imaginative potential? Rarity? If that’s it, something broken or decayed should be more valuable as it’s singular, and something handmade worth the most of all.  @maewhen

We are pleased to announce ‘Borrowers’ an exhibition of work by C. Mae Bloom running 12 March - 9 May 2026. Opening Weds 11 March 5-8pm. All welcome ♥️ A forward motion in any direction, 2025 Cast bronze, felt tip pen, glass bugle beads, silver plated copper wire, nail varnish. 5.5 x 5.5 x 1 cm @maewhen