Cal Westbrook's practice weaves childhood memory, folkloric tales and protective charms into an imagined inner world — far from the anxiety of modern life, close to something older and more comforting. Stitch, embroidery and doll-making intertwine with an illustrative style rooted in children's picture book making and a background in theatre and puppetry.

A grandmother making Norah Wellings dolls for Chad Valley from scraps and scarves; Sindy with her detailed houses and furniture; a grandparent bringing home traditional costume dolls from holidays abroad — dolls were always present, and dolls led naturally to dolls houses: miniature worlds that suspend disbelief, theatres of imagined life played out through tiny, detailed rooms.

The notion of craft — endangered, sometimes lost — runs through the work as a driving force. Hours of stitching imbue each object with the maker's emotion: something permanent and tangible, like a forgotten doll in the corner of a dusty museum holding the memory of a disappeared time. Brass banding and village shows find their way in too, through the Clackzoy — a hybrid brass instrument soldered together by Cal's father, whose family line runs deep into that history; a recording of it being played, triggered by a motion sensor, accompanies the work.

Dolls houses and dolls become shrines, charms, folkloric effigies and personal deities. Large-scale embroideries, needlepoint, soft sculpture, assemblage and painting — a multi-disciplinary practice held together by a single impulse: the ordinary magic of the handmade.