AQUA-8 Textile Artists

GALLERY

Susanna Lyman

Artist Statement

January 2010

Susanna is an enthusiastic textile artist living by the coast in Essex.  She has run Open Studio sessions annually for the last five years, and is constantly developing dynamic and bright new designs and ideas, recently introducing some training workshops for all in ages in various media.

Susanna completed her City and Guilds last year and continues to enjoy combining techniques and styles to create textured and mixed media art.  She is inspired by her countryside and coastal surroundings, the animals she ‘collects’ and the challenges of life (particularly with teenage children!) which she incorporates into her designs and pieces.  Recently she has been experimenting with indigo dyeing, using varied fabrics and threads to create different effects.

Susanna’s aim is to continue to experiment and develop her work in all areas and to encourage and promote  textile art, and participation within it, to all ages.

Diane Kelsey

My interest in textiles has really developed over the past four years, following my first visit to The Knitting & Stitching Show. It was truly a life changing experience.

I am a part time textiles teacher in a secondary school, teaching all age groups. This enables me the time, to attend several groups and attend workshops, that help me gain further knowledge in this ever, developing field. Apart from improving my own skills it helps me deliver a far broader curriculum to my students, which hopefully will inspire them to develop textiles as a hobby.

My work has always been inspired my love of gardening and the patterns found in nature. I enjoy using a range of techniques and I am currently involved in exploring the use of colour and texture. I have been dyeing my own fabric, using hand embroidery, plus the manipulation of fabrics to reproduce sights seen in the form of quilt art. Recent exhibitions have inspired me to extend these ideas into 3D form.

Margaret Lacy


Margaret has been interested in embroidery and stitching for most of her life and has had a successful career as a teacher in Adult Education and as a National Association of Flower Arranging Demonstrator. Now she has retired, she can devote more time to develop her textile work.

Since 2006, Margaret has been a member of the Textile group Material Girls where she exhibits her work regularly. In 2009 Margaret passed the C & G Design for Craft – Stitched Textiles Part 3. She also joined the newly formed Eastern Region Textile Forum where she took part in their latest competition which was exhibited at the Warner Textile Archive and also in Cambridge.

In recent years Margaret has particularly enjoyed working on projects that have produced a collection of work related to a common theme.  She uses a range of traditional and contemporary techniques to develop and explore her ideas in creative ways.  Margaret enjoys the challenge of learning new skills and incorporating them into her work.  She finds using fine hand embroidery techniques particularly enjoyable.

Julie Chellingsworth
Artist’s Statement
November 2009


Julie is a textile artist living by the River Blackwater in Goldhanger, Essex.  Having recently completed her City and Guilds Certificate, she is looking forward to exploring some of the techniques learnt in more detail.  She is particularly interested in colour – bright, strong and contrasting.  She prefers to work with natural fabrics, mainly cotton and cotton/silk mix.  She is following her recent interest in quilting arts using simple dyeing techniques and machine embroidery.  Being a keen gardener, the natural colour of flowers and fruit give her inspiration in her present work which is moving towards abstract.

Marie Payne

Profile

As none of her family were skilled enough to pass on any stitching knowledge Marie was originally a self-taught embroiderer. Her formal  education in stitching came in later life and quite quickly developed into a deep and abiding love for stitched and contemporary textiles.

Marie is currently exploring and experimenting with many of the more recent techniques applied in art textiles. She finds inspiration for her work in the world around her, whether man-made or the work of Mother Nature.

The challenge of how to execute a piece of work from research to idea, thence to sketch and sampling through to her completed work is exciting for her and brings great satisfaction.  However her love for hand stitch never abates and she often cannot resist including it as part of her final embellishment.

Chris Spencer – Artist’s Statement

The Natural World has always inspired Chris. From earliest childhood she has sought refuge from the modern world by immersing herself in the natural environment and in so doing has discovered the magical qualities that nature possesses. It has the ability to enchant or heal. To instil peace, joy, excitement or even to frighten. Nature is always changing, moving and is never stagnant. It holds endless secrets to discover and it is always, always wonderful.
It is these feelings that Chris continually tries to explore in her art. Exploiting the myriad qualities and techniques that working within the field of textiles allows, she seeks to catch elusive qualities of colour, light, texture or form in her ‘Natural Abstracts’.
To try and achieve this end Chris combines the fabrics that she creates   from natural fibres with embellishment and hand stitching. To Chris the process is almost as important as the finished work- each created piece of fabric is akin to the soil being tilled, each carefully placed stitch as necessary as the sowing of seeds. Hand stitching is vital to her work as it provides the tactile contact with the textile, in the same way as smelling a flower or the sound of a rushing stream creates a whole beyond the purely visual.
It is Chris’ search to capture these qualities and to impart them to her audience that continues to drive her work forward.

Sheila Frankland
Artist Statement
October 2009

Sheila Frankland is a Textile artist living in Tiptree, Essex. 

She likes to use recycled and her own hand dyed fabrics in art quilts using both machine and hand stitch.  Her inspiration comes from the nature, its disintegration and its effect on man-made objects and she enjoys taking photographs as a resource whenever she goes into the countryside or to the sea.

Miriam Weaver
Artist Statement
October 2009

Miriam  is a Textile artist living on the boarders of Essex and East London.  The environment she lives in and environmental issues inspire her. Since completing her City and Guilds she has become interested in combining different techniques to create texture and raised surfaces in her work. Currently she is experimenting with dyeing her own fabrics and threads, mainly silks and cottons and uses hand dyed materials in her work as much as possible.

Her work is always moving forward as she continues to experiment with the use of colour and texture.

website: www.miriamweaver.co.uk

Contact: miriam.textiles@btinternet.com