Page 78 - The Digital Cloth Holiday issue 2

I had been working for BBC

Scotland as a radio producer for
nearly 15 years when I decided to
take voluntary redundancy and it
felt like a very big, scary step. It
was a good job, interesting and
varied, with a good degree of
creativity as crafting a radio
programme is, inherently, a
creative process. But I knew, deep
down, that it wasn’t fulfilling
my need to create art and I was

yearning to explore that side of
myself properly. So, I took the
plunge in 2008 when I said
goodbye to radio and began
building a portfolio at Edinburgh
College of Art by attending a
wide range of day and evening
classes in their Continuing
Studies department which was

open to everyone. I then got
a place on their part time BA
course in Combined Studies
which was very exciting. I wasn’t
too concerned about actually
getting a degree (I already had
one in Anthropology from
Durham Uni) so the aim was to
try every medium I could and
hopefully find one that spoke to
me.

As part of the degree, I was told
I had to undertake a module in
Stitched Textiles which I wasn’t at
all happy about as my only
experience with sewing had been
interminable sewing classes at
primary school - the boys got
to do pottery but the girls had
to sew! I hated the idea, and the

injustice, of it! I went into the
module a bit grumpily. However,
my lovely tutor showed me how
versatile a sewing machine could
be.