Clock

Winner of the Quilt Creations Catagory at The Festival Of Quilts 2014 UK.

I have always loved clocks and made my first one over fifteen years ago when I was living in Pembrokeshire and I was given a beautiful five and a half foot plank of elm wood still with the bark around the edge. The plank became a flat, painted clock with a quartz mechanism which still leans against the wall in Mum's kitchen keeping perfect time. Fast forward to the present day; I was pondering sketchbooks, looking for inspiration for that years Festival of Quilts and chatting to Mum when she suggested another clock. Time and change are recurring themes in my work and the idea of another working clock took hold.
The artist made structure is covered with quilted silk velvet and acid etched silk and cotton, dyed with walnut ink and tea.
The clock face is free machine embroidered and photo transfer fitted with a quartz mechanism. Stuffed cord vines and flowers wind around the face along with scull and bone beads.
The sides are full of made and found objects, tiny bottles containing messages and other found oddments surmounted by hand and machine embroiderd lettering. The front panel has a hand made embroidered book, jewellery tassels and a working pendulum made of a quilted heart surrounded by old clock hands.

Thoughts on why I work the way I do

I grew up in a house where things were always being made. My grandmother was a tailoress, knitter, crocheter and avid cake and jam maker. Mum taught fashion at degree level and is a tapestry weaver, a great cook and an ongoing champion of my work and Dad made all sorts, from radios to boats. So, from a very early age, if I wanted or needed anything there was someone around to provide encouragement materials and enthusiasm for me to have the confidence to realize my own ideas.
Although I pursued other things and worked in retail among other things, I always had a sewing machine and enjoyed sewing and making. The big change came with a move to Pembrokeshire where I joined the Embroiders Guild and, as we had rare breed sheep, the Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Guild. Both groups were very active with regular exhibitions and classes. Through the encouragement of artists such as Rosanne Hawksley, Audrey Walker and especially Jean Draper I returned in 2001 to university (Oxford Brookes) to read Contemporary Fine Art for a BA and then for my Master's Degree. I initially worked with video but soon realised that the objects I was filming were more important than the film itself and those objects were usually made by me using textiles and stitch.
I have developed a body of connected work ever since. Layering, wrapping and preserving are returning themes as are ideas of my identity and my place in time and space. I often build up layers of fabric and embroidery only to use acid on the surface to burn away parts to reveal detail underneath, a sort of artist's archeology
I enjoy telling a story, of things that have gone before and of objects that have become precious and have a story to tell. Although my work often has a strong personal theme this is not always obvious; it is important to me that my work allows the viewer the space to invent and interpret the work for themselves.

I am also a collector. Not of fine watches or fragile dolls but of doll parts and broken watches along with dog-eared books, tiny bottles, old letters and sheet music, salt cellars, feathers and fabric. Lots of fabric. I love to reuse old textiles, especially silk, linen and cotton. There is something about fabric that has been repeatedly handled and washed, it has a history, like the ticking changing room curtains, used in Storytelling, that I bought from a shop in Oxford. These were made from heavy furnishing cotton that had been used and cleaned repeatedly until they were going thin in parts, the linings were disintegrating but they had a wonderful softness that you never get in new fabric.
My collecting never stops. I have sand from beaches and places I visit on holiday. I have a little jar full of small, decorative metal discs that I picked up after they had fallen from the costumes of belly dancers at a show in Egypt. I have key fobs and hundreds of keys, of all sizes, charms and small statuettes as well as bayonets from antique markets, spent bullet cases and old medals all go onto the shelves that line my studio waiting to find their place in a future piece of work.

My work always comes back to fabric and stitch, hand or machine, I love both.