Page 82 - The Digital Cloth Holiday issue 2

I love starting a piece - all the My waiting list for commissions has recently
possibilities stretch in front of you. It’s lengthened dramatically and I’m fully booked
very exciting. There does usually come until February now. I also have to carve out

a stage, often about 3/4 of the way time to make work for galleries and any shows
through, especially with big pieces, that might be coming up.
where I’m heartily sick of it and that’s Often people will see a piece on my website or
when I know I need to step away for a social media accounts they like and I’m able to
little while, get some distance and have make them a similar piece although not exactly
a rest. Fall in love with it again. Coming the same because every piece is unique.
back and seeing it with new eyes is so Sometimes people get in touch asking me to
important. You have to be very careful work with a photo of a tree, or trees, or a view
not to overstitch because, whereas with

paint you can remove, dilute or paint
over, the density of my stitching means
its almost impossible to unpick when it
goes wrong or doesn’t took right so I
have to steer it back in the right
direction by stitching on top of already
existing stitches and there’s only so
many times you can do that until it
becomes too dense and that’s when
needles start to break or the piece
becomes heavy and lifeless. So

planning is really important and I’m
constantly reigning myself back in,
reminding myself to do less because I
have several more layers of thread to
go on top of what I’m currently sewing.

My favourite piece is usually my
latest piece. I’m very self-critical with
my work and tend to look back at some

old pieces I’ve done very critically
indeed. Having said that, there’s a piece
I made several years ago called “Log”
that I still really love. Partly because it
heralded a new direction for me and
got me thinking in a totally different
way about my work. I’m also currently
really enjoying developing work around
piece of mine called “The Blameless
Trees” as well as a series of works I have
looking up into the sky, framed by the

forest. The pieces where I might
manage to make the viewer feel
immersed are the ones, I like the most.