The group (of figures in the painting Benches) as a whole formed the central feature of a tapestry in which each of the master weavers of the Edinburgh Tapestry Company found their own solution to resolving the problem of working from elusive dots of crude offset reproduction.

Works and Texts (1992),  pp. 47-49

In close collaboration with Archie Brennan of the Edinburgh Tapestry Co. I worked on the designs for two tapestries. This test was the first stage in the making of a tapestry of the colour catalogues (in this case a colour catalogue of the tapestry workshop itself).

Works/Texts to 1974 (1974),  p. 124-25.

Tom Phillips has written 'It is easy when one's interests are intellectual and concerned with the structure of ideas to become very remote from the paper preoccupations of everyday life. I have tried to counterbalance this by using commonplace references (e.g. park benches) and unifying commonplace sources (the picture postcard). Art at the moment of production is sometimes unavoidably elitist, yet the democratic elements in it and the relationship to the life of the people eventually emerges'.

The design for this tapestry has been drawn from Phillips' huge collection of picture postcards which often provides the basis for his work. The lettering along the foot of the panel tells how the original postcard became the painting Benches, followed by two sets of prints and finally, through Archie Brennan and the dovecot, it became this tapestry (which has since in its turn been made into a postcard).

As an experiment, a novel type of interpretation was employed to re-create the fuzzy tones of the original postcard. The panel was divided into four sections with each weaver treating his part in a different way.

The first section was woven normally (i.e. straight from the cartoon) but in the others different processes were followed, involving linear breakdown in the second part, while a diamond pattern was imposed over the whole of the last.

Much of the succuss of this tapestry is due to Tom Phillips' and Archie Brennan's abilities to break down colour with precision.

Master Weavers: Tapestry from the Dovecot Studios, 1912-1980, (Edinburgh: Scottish Arts Council, 1980),  p. 110-111.

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