It was a happy day when I met Hilary at Taunton Flower Show a few years ago. With my ever increasing passion for wool textiles, I was blown away by Hilary's vibrant and energetic tapestry weaving and this fabulous piece is just one example of her work that has attracted much interest and wowed many textile enthusiasts.
Chatting with Hilary, I realised that we have much common ground - a love of wool, nature, all things Somerset and being organised! Hilary works from her home studio in Edington, just up the road from my Spring Farm studio. She uses an organic style of tapestry weaving from the front of the work. For anyone interested in learning the basics of this tactile and engaging skill, Hilary will be teaching at my Spring Farm studio this autumn.
For my own work, I have continued to derive huge inspiration from the Somerset Levels area that I am so privileged to live and work in. I can often be found wandering around forgotten places enjoyed by dwellers of time past, such as the ancient woodland at Aller & Beer. My passion for working with natural fibres continues, particularly silk and wool and pushing the boundaries on what I can achieve with dry felting and free machine thread painting. My exploration of light and shade is also a strong focus and I am enjoying the depth that these contrasts bring to my work.
My experimentations with plant dyes has also continued and I had much fun creating a new vessel project for the exhibition with hand dyed mulberry silk 'mawata' - silk cocoons that have been degummed and spread over a square frame and when dry can be used for spinning, felting and textile work. These made for a very enjoyable thread painting project before and during the exhibition and I am looking forward to showing my students how to make at my Open Stitch Workshops this summer.
I was also delighted to exhibit examples of recent pictorial work by some of my students who share my passion for 'thread painting'. It is a life's mission to promote textiles as a valid art medium for all ages, male and female, and I am very grateful to Marie, Julie, Sue and Arthur who kindly agreed to take part.
Hilary and I had a very enjoyable exhibition chatting to visitors about our work and hearing about their textile passions. Textiles are so entwined in all of our lives and everyone has a story to tell about their experiences. We both felt very honoured that so many visitors came to see our work and that we had the opportunity to hear what they liked about it.
This memorable view from my working table during the exhibition had unquestionable wow factor and it is one that will be very hard to beat.
The Wells and Mendip Museum has many interesting static and time bound exhibitions throughout the year and it is easily found alongside Wells Cathedral on Cathedral Green - just up from the famous astronomical clock. They have a brilliant display of Victorian embroidered samplers stitched by children and as the Tourist Information Centre for Wells, the friendly staff are always delighted to advise and help on all that goes on in Somerset's wonderful city of Wells.
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