Page 11 - The Digital Cloth Issue 6

My name is Bryony Rose Jennings. I’m
a textile artist from the UK. I create
sculptures of animals from found
textiles and reclaimed cloth.
My creative journey is one of count-
less meandering paths, all intrinsic to
the many-layered tapestry of experi-
ence that finds me here, in my current
role as creator of cloth characters
and summoner of textile souls.
I had a pretty charmed childhood,
growing up in a small cottage in a
quiet village in rural Hampshire. My
parents were art teachers and are
both artists in their own right, I never
had to question that a career in the
arts was a possibility, and for that I
know I am extremely lucky. My broth-
er and I were always creating,
discovering and exploring, the
kitchen table was often covered in
clay or drawing paper, my bedroom
was full of thread and fabric scraps,
the garden was all hidey holes, dens
stocked with mud pies and flower
petal potions.
I grew up lost in my own imagination;
I was a believer in fairies, magical
creatures and talking animals. I loved
reading storybooks and watching the
slightly surreal children’s TV of 1980’s
Britain. The characters imagined and
discovered during my formative years
have a definite, if subconscious,
influence on my work today.
I always loved to gather and curate
collections of treasures, detritus of
nature found in fields, forests and on
beaches, forgotten and unloved in my work, some I like to keep around
trinkets gathered from car-boot sales
and charity shops. I still collect and
curate, I find it hard to let anything go, I explored the significance of my
skeletal leaves and dried out
seed heads - symbols of loss and
decay. I assembled a tent of
memory that you could enter
and become immersed in, it was
a story of transition, I see that
work as one of the starting points
that led to the textile sculptures i
make now. The freedom I had at
college to explore a wide range
of materials and disciplines was
invaluable, and opened my eyes
to new ways of working.
I went on to study Jewellery and
Silversmithing at university in
Birmingham, I learnt to work with
metal and realise my ideas in
three dimensions. The one thing
that really stuck with me from that
time is guidance given to me by
a wonderful tutor, the late Derek
Birch. He saw I was
completely outside of ‘the box’
and encouraged me to cling on
to my individuality; I was exploring
lots of different materials and my
jewellery did not always conform
to expectations of polish and
perfection. Derek celebrated
that difference; his insight and
kind words have helped ensure
that I will always forge my own
path.
The next leg of the journey began
with an installation in a Cliffside
water-lift for the Folkestone
Triennial in Kent. Leas Lift is a
funicular railway, which carries
and my studio space is full to bursting childhood collections and associated passengers between the seafront
with a lifetime of gatherings, some I use memories during my art foundation and the promenade. My friend
course at college. l used images of my Abi and I had been working
just for the magic I see in them. precious objects transferred on to cloth, collaboratively since we
free motion stitched together on soluble graduated. We settled on beach
fabric with depictions of spider webs, balls as an iconic symbol of