Page 75 - The Digital Cloth Issue 7

More recently I’ve been experimenting with
adding lines of old poetry and folklore on my
larger pieces.

This year lockdown has given me pause to do
more reading and thinking about the
environment and how it is suffering. The fast
pace of change and shifting baselines mean that
we are only aware of the way the natural world
has changed within our short life spans. The
rich diversity of the past has changed beyond
measure. I’ve been looking at rare, once

common birds such as the Nightingale and
the Turtle Dove and working on a Turtle Dove
piece- a bird common only decades ago but
with numbers dwindling fast in the UK due to
habitat loss. I’ve paired it with a collage of rare
quilt fragments and a piece of, I believe, very
delicate ancient Spitalfields silk. At the same
time, I’ve spent the summer watching the

frequent bird visitors in my village and garden.
The gangs of Sparrows, nesting Blue Tits and
particularly the plump and successful Wood
Pigeon. This bird is just as beautiful as the
Turtle Dove, though common. I don’t want to
venerate only the rare bird and ignore and take
for granted the everyday.

My main and quite simple aim is to celebrate
the beauty of the birds that we see – while they
are here. I’m lucky to live in a place with nature
for inspiration, joy in celebrating it in art. But

I’m also aware of the fragility of it all, both the
work and the environment, and that underpins
everything.

For commissions get in touch through my
website

For prints

For original pieces either