My work is deeply rooted in the natural world and the flora and fauna that surrounds me. Each piece is an exploration of natural resources and traditional techniques and a journey to discover ways of creating in harmony with the earth.
RAW MATERIALS.
To make my beautiful art, I always start with the fleece from my gentle, inquisitive alpacas who live in the field behind my studio often incorporate the flax I have grown and processed.
Once a year in early summer, their fleece is sheared by specialists. When sheared, the fleece is delivered to the East Anglian Alpaca Mill, an eco-friendly midi-mill who only work with alpaca fleece. They wash and card (comb) the fleeces for me to use with felting techniques or they spin it into yarn for weaving and sewing. The processed fleeces are then returned, still white, for me to begin experimenting with colour.
Aside from the fleece and flax, I sometimes use an open weave fabric, such as silk chiffon or silk gauze, which are particularly important when I’m nuno-felting. These delicate, non-stretch fabrics provide an exquisite base for certain works. I also explore repurposed man-made materials that I find where I live, yet again broadening my enquiry, creativity and message.
COLOURS AND DYES.
My love of colour has always been central to my work.
Manmade dyes can give urban, bold areas of colour, but I am now so enticed into the alchemy and often softer shades of creating dyes from the plants I cultivate and find naturally growing in my garden, that this is all I am going to use in the future. Onions, nettles, woad, acorns, Japanese Indigo, Coreopsis, ivy and comfrey create the natural, earthy colour palettes you see in my latest pieces, with increasing colour experimentation coming in the future.
It is a far longer dyeing process, using natural dyes. First, I plant the seeds, grow the plants, harvest the flower, seeds or leaves as and when they are developed and then sometimes dry them, long before I can start dyeing the alpaca fleece. The plant that I am having to be most patient with, is Madder. I first planted some seeds in early 2022 and did not harvest the precious roots until the end of 2024. I dried some of them and got the wonderful reds and pinks I could of only dreamed of.
TECHNIQUES.
I am a trained painter, but the alpacas and my ‘field to studio’ approach have given me a new direction to explore different skills. Nevertheless, my work continues to be centred on colour, line, form and abstract designs, with each individual piece created from intensely meaningful conceptual ideas that come from within me.
Weaving: Weaving is a method of textile production where two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. I often use weaving like a canvas, as a painter would. I work on both a rigid heddle loom and frames of various sizes to create tapestry pieces.
Felting: Felting is the process where I can make my alpaca fibres bond together by the fibres being laid out in different direction one lay on top of another, gently adding warm soapy water and working into it through pressing and rolling. This can form a fine or thick material according to quantity of fibre and care of processing.
Nuno-felting: Nuno-felting is not widely known, yet it is a skill that can result in a very fine, flowing material where my alpaca fleece is hand-bonded into silk or another ‘open’ weave material using nothing more than soapy water and hard work! Its airy versatility is intoxicating.
Hand-sewn: Whether it’s intricate decoration detail or part of the structure of the piece, I hand sew everything by hand using alpaca yarn.
FLAX PROCESSING.
BREAKING
Breaking this is the first process which breaks the outer stem and starts removing it. This material is called shive. The traditional cottage industry break (displayed) works like a blunt guillotine.
SCRUNCHING
Scutching is a scraping action which removes most of the remaining shives and loosens dust and dried gums which are stuck to fibres. This can be done with various tools, but the simplest is to hold the flax vertically beat it briskly with a scutching stick.
HACKLING
Hackling is passing the fibres through a series of combs from coarse to fine; this process removes the shorter fibres, straightens and further cleans the fibres. At least half of the fibres after scutching will be removed. These shorter fibres are referred to as tow and can be further carded and spun in the same way as wool.
TOW PROCESSING
The tow is removed from the Hackle and further processed with carders and then rolled into rolags. These fibres can be processed further into yarn using a drop spindle to make yarn.
LONG FIBRE PROCESSING
Distaff preparation: Before long flax fibres can be spun they need to be held in such a way that they feed out continuously to the drop spindle or spinning wheel. These are held on a distaff the most common shape of these is the cone distaff which can readily be made from card. A strick of fibre is tied with a long ribbon and then swept backwards and forwards on a table creating a fan shape. The fibres are picked up by the cone as it is rolled over them, the ribbon is laced around the fibres. The fibre is then ready for spinning with a drop spindle or spinning wheel.
Spinning longline flax: Well grown and prepared flax is a delight to spin either with a drop spindle or a wheel. With experience flax has the ability to continuously draw from the mass of fibres. The twisting action from the wheel catches fibres which can be spun either finely or coarsely as required.
