ART lovers will get the opportunity to weave their way through the city's rich textile past at an exhibition opening in Bradford College next week.

Bradford Pick and Mix exhibition will combine several months of work by artists who have been inspired by the colleges extensive textile archive, which dates back hundreds of years.

In September the college was awarded a £15,000 grant by the Arts Council to create an exhibition by 20 contemporary artists to go on display at the newly re-furbished Dye House Gallery.

The venue is particularly fitting for the exhibition - it was originally a dye house, built as part of a purpose built vertical textile mill for the teaching of textiles for the local industry.

The artists have visited the archive over several months to go through the vast library, which include collections from the college's past as well as from the Bradford mills that once ruled the textile world.

They were all picked from various artistic backgrounds, and so when people visit the exhibition they will see a range of works, from prints to paintings to ceramics and jewellery. It will also include displays of images, some dating back as far as 1882, of the city's mills and the machinery used in them.

Artists that have contributed to the exhibition include Caro Blount-Shah, Blue 142, Liz Clay, Manya Dorian Doñaque, Liza Dracup, Dudley Edwards, Madeline Edwards, Helen Farrar, Brita Granström, Sandra Kerr, Hannah Lamb, Mick Manning, Sarah McDade, Mark Milnes, Margaret Naylor, Helen Parrott, Glenys Phillips,June Russell, Clare Wellesley-Smith, Jo Whitehead, Helen Wood and Jane Vanroe.

Artist Hannah Lamb, who also teaches embroidery at the college, produced a cross stitched piece and a cyanotype photographic print inspired by the collections of George Arnold Stead, a former college pupil who went on to work in Listers Mill and then Liberty's of London. She said: "There were lots of skills based in Bradford because of the textile industry and this helps highlight them again. I had gone through books in the archive and I found that Bradford had such a strong sewing industry as well as a major industry producing embroidery. It has been quite interesting to find all this out."

Helen Farrar, curator at the textile archive, has also produced a piece - hanging fish inspired by fabric prints from the archive, which is used by textile students in the college and across the country.

The exhibition starts on Tuesday and will be on show until February 18. The Dye House Gallery is open from Monday to Friday, 11am until 4pm; with a Saturday opening on February 7, from 10am until 4pm.

Access to the gallery is through the main entrance to the college's Lister Building in Carlton Street.