I trained as worked as a town planner for many years, before studying and working as a textile artist. I studied City and Guilds Embroidery before completing a 3 year Stitched Textile Diploma course at Windsor.
My work is varied but I especially love textural work involving many different hand threads. My inspiration is often birds, especially garden birds, but I enjoy experimenting with different sources of inspiration and techniques. My work is usually colourful and joyous.
I have been working in textiles for about 15 years, largely in Sydney Australia until I moved back to the UK last year. I studied Stitched Textiles and Embroidery through City & Guilds online while abroad, and fell in love with wet felting at an early stage.
As a textile artist I focus upon the detail found in nature and science, often drawing upon my past years of research in the pharmaceutical industry for inspiration. I work in contemporary abstraction employing texture, colour and design to convey significant impressions and to interact with my audience.
I generally employ wool as a base in my practice, hand dyeing and wet felting. I often add other fabrics, mixed media and hand or machine embroidery to play with differences in surface texture, opacity and rigidity as the design dictates.
I am a member of Prism Textiles in the UK and Untethered Fibre Artists in Australia.
Growing up in rural Oxfordshire I had an appreciation for the countryside and a fascination with nature and wildlife. This love of nature and a passion for art and textiles led me to achieve a degree in Embroidery, followed by a Master’s degree in Textile design in 2006. Since then I have worked as a designer-maker of textile accessories and also wedding dresses. In 2016 I received the awards of Best Independent Designer and Best in Show at Art Couture festival for my wearable art piece entitled ‘Ocean’s Last Gasp’. My wearable art, adornments and accessories are sold in galleries throughout the UK and I regularly attend craft fairs and markets where I meet lovely customers and gain inspiration for new designs.
My work is still inspired by the fairy tales, folklore and nature I appreciated as a child, as well as decorative arts and historical costume. The designs develop from initial drawings and studies which then pass through many different processes of dye, print, stitch, cutwork and heat manipulation to create unique and entirely wearable, decorative and colourful textile accessories to wear and treasure.
Since 2017 I have worked from a bright and airy studio in the courtyard of a grade II listed former pub in central Witney. I occasionally open my studio to visitors, so please see my website and join my mailing list for news about events and open studios.
For 20 years, hand weaving has been a passion of mine. Following retirement from nursing, I finished an HNC in Handwoven Textile Design at Bradford College in 2006. Based in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, I design and weave scarves and shawls. The vibrant colour palettes are inspired by travels in India. Each of these one-off accessories is created in silk, linen and wool to give a lustrous finish. My latest range of scarves uses the Japanese technique called woven shibori which produces permanent pleats in the cloth. It is used to create movement of colour from one side of the cloth to the other.
I sell at craft fairs and exhibitions, and by commission.
I possess a comprehensive knowledge and experience of art/design. But my specialist area is textiles due to studying it over many years, both creatively and technically in its various forms, including a BSc (Hons) Textile & Knitwear Technology, BA (Hons) Fashion Design and a City & Guilds in Millinery (winning a Highly Commended Certificate).
I have also made contributions by self teaching and experimenting. Millinery is my specialist area for the OCG. In the first two years of joining OCG I did win the ‘Best New Work Competition’.
Also I have competed in the national Bridport Hat Making Competition, in 2012 winning Third prize and in 2016 the Public Choice prize. In 2016, one of my hats was awarded the Oxfordshire Craft Guild Prize at the Guild’s Annual Woodstock Exhibition.
I also make miscellaneous small sewn objects such as my Liberty lawn frogs, bird and cat brooches, corsages and limited amounts of complimentary silk painting.
My work is usually known for its intricate detail and good use of colour. Much of my inspiration originates from nature, playing with different combinations of fabric and of course using my own imagination.
My work is also displayed for sale during Oxfordshire Artweeks in the month of May most years. Art galleries have hosted my textiles in group selling exhibitions.
I have experience in teaching and giving talks about my work.
Commissions welcome.
I trained originally as a colour chemist, dyeing, colouring and setting up quality control procedures in industry. I started to space dye fabrics and embroidery threads for use in my own textiles and eventually produced them on a small commercial scale (for 21st C Yarns).
I use my dyed threads and fabrics in my own textiles, which often have a strong Indian influence, although the design is sometimes lead by texture and colour especially in my decorated bags.
I continue to experiment with making bags using as great a variety of natural materials as possible and also dye scarves in silk habutai and silk mixtures.
I take commissions for my scarves, bags and embroidered pictures.
I studied Woven Textiles in the early 1980’s, through which evolved an intuitive understanding and response to colour and the tactile nature of textile materials. I strive to capture the essence of the landscape and natural forms which influence my work. I use drawings to capture a sense of the moment when I look, think and experience, capturing fleeting fragments of the landscape which are observed and absorbed as I move through it, looking at the familiar, seeing the extraordinary; responding to the subtle changes of view in the rhythmic motion of walking. I explore the evocative moods of seasonal change and atmospheric qualities of light and changing weather. I use the power of the stitched mark to add textural and linear qualities to spontaneous intuitive drawn and painted marks on fabric and paper. My work is a response to what it feels like to be within the landscape, a sense of the space around me, an impression. The scale of my works range from large individual hangings to small wall mounted panels and framed textile artworks. I welcome work to commission and am happy to consider invitations to give talks, workshops and courses.
I studied Fashion Design in the 1980’s and went on to have a busy career in Retail buying for a Department Store. Buying gave me great opportunities to use my creativity and express my passion for product range and design.
Today this love of design, colour and fabric is the focus of my textile art and I now design and make embroidered fabric collage pictures. Inspiration for my designs comes mainly from the natural world and will often include birds and other animals. Colour plays a key part in my work and I enhance each piece with detailed hand and machine stitch.
All my pictures are original one-offs and whilst I work in series featuring a particular subject no two pictures are ever the same. Along with the original pieces I also have a range of limited edition giclée prints and greetings cards.