Rachna’s practice begins with the quiet act of noticing – the texture of bark, the curve of a seed pod, the subtle hues of grasses underfoot – as well as her own emotional response to the natural world.

For Rachna, each walk is a meditative experience. It’s a moment to absorb the mood and emotion of the landscape. Her materials, often gathered on her walks, guide her. They whisper possibilities shaped, in turn, by words, imagery and poetry. Together, they become the warp and the weft of her visual language: one that captures the wonder of the natural world.

Rachna Garodia: My intricately woven textures are like viewing a landscape. I’m capturing the atmosphere, tone and emotion felt on my daily walks. 

The starting point for my work has always been exploring materials, bringing unexpected textures together in a warp. I juxtapose cotton, linen, silk, nettle, hemp and wool with found materials such as paper, bark, seed pods and twigs. 

When I weave, I lose all sense of time. I get totally immersed in the craft, and day and night merge together as one. I find weaving’s rhythmic and repetitive nature meditative and calming.

Every piece of work is unique and bespoke. Each one takes shape slowly in my studio in west London and is later crafted into screens, space dividers and framed textile art.

Cultivating possibilities

I’ve always had to balance the challenge of being a mother-of-two with the fact that weaving is a slow craft. When my children were younger and I needed to work all hours to meet deadlines for shows and commissions, I used to spill out of the studio into all corners of our home.

However, rather than being a hindrance, this constraint added an interesting element to my practice. I started enjoying weaving small collections on paper and on little portable frames. 

I love the challenge of switching between locations and various types of looms and scale of work. 

“Mixing things up keeps my mind abuzz with new ideas, possibilities and helps in cultivating beginner’s mind.”

Rachna Garodia, weaver and textile artist

Explorations on the loom

I’m exploring two themes constantly in my work. One is the beauty of quietude and silence that I find in nature while on my daily walks. The other is the duality of my lived life in India and the UK.

I develop my ideas using mood boards. I’ll combine photos taken on my walks with yarns and poetry or words that resonate with the theme. I find written words spark imagery that lingers within me and so naturally keeps me in a state of creative flow.

No rules weaving

I source my yarns for weaving from all over the world. I love all types of threads and I’ll often chance upon interesting and inspiring materials in car boot sales and charity shops. 

Daily walks provide a lot of natural materials like twigs, leaves and other finds. I clean and prepare these for weaving by drying and varnishing them.

When I’m starting a new project, I find it freeing to use a variety of materials like paper, yarns, fabric strips, leaves and grasses as there are no rules.

When there are no rules there’s no fear of making a mistake and getting it wrong. The key is to have fun and keep playing and experimenting till you find a method that feels right for you.

“It is liberating to just be led by the materials one is using, rather than trying to lead the material.”

Rachna Garodia, weaver and textile artist

Working process 

My mum used to be a very quick and intuitive knitter, I never saw her following a pattern from a book. She had it all in her head. She inspires me and once I’ve planned my colours and materials I also work intuitively, but on the loom. 

Sometimes I have a few guiding shapes sketched out, but I tend to do my own thing. I mostly use a combination of plain weave, twill (a weave with a diagonal pattern) and soumak (where the weft threads are wrapped around the warps).

Because I’m naturally intuitive rather than a ‘step-by-step’ person, developing my Stitch Club workshop was quite entertaining. I got to see a different side of myself as I really had to pause and break down each step of the process. 

Perfecting my craft

I was introduced to weaving aged nineteen while doing my Bachelor programme. I found it magical – how a simple arrangement of threads on even a recycled piece of cardboard could result in patterns. That feeling of magic has never left me. 

Later on, I trained as a textile designer at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India. There I was taught more complicated weaves together with the aesthetics of design, under the tutelage of my professors Mrs Aditi Ranjan and Mr Kurma Rao. 

This was an influential time for me. Erroll Pires Nelson, one of my design school professors, whose hands were always busy with cotton ropes and engrossed in his ply split braiding, continues to be a lifelong inspiration.

I started my art practice in 2000, with a small loom on the dining table in a tiny apartment in the suburbs of Mumbai. I began freelancing and working with various architects and interior designers, weaving a number of interesting commissions. 

My personal life, however, brought a few pauses in my creative journey – namely, having babies and moving to multiple countries. I moved from India to London in 2006, and then to Dubai in 2014, before finally making a second home in London in 2016. 

Throughout these years of settling in different homes and raising kids, I had a compulsion to create. I always travelled with my first loom, which is very dear to me, so I continued to weave wherever I was living. 

From shuttle to needle

The rhythmic taps of the loom, which had always been so reassuring for me, made it difficult to weave beside my babies, so I turned to hand embroidery. I attended the Royal School of Needlework in London to learn technical hand embroidery. 

The softness and calmness of embroidery felt natural with young children around. When weaving wasn’t possible, I designed and embroidered quilts and cushions. Gradually, I started showing my pieces in exhibitions and shows and slowly gained a rhythm and flow in my work.

So far I’ve not combined weaving and embroidery in one piece but it is something I’ve long wanted to do. Only now have I been able to make space to take my time experimenting. And I’m working on some new and exciting concepts where both techniques find a way to complement each other in one art piece.

“I learn so much by being around creative people from multiple disciplines.” 

Rachna Garodia, weaver and textile artist

Creative collectives

When I finally moved my practice from home to a studio in 2017, life altered immeasurably. As well as getting a dedicated space to work outside of my home, at last I met my tribe of artists and makers that I’d not previously been acquainted with in London. 

I’m part of Pollen Collective, a group of multidisciplinary artists. Brainstorming various ways of problem solving, crit sessions and so many meaningful and joyous collaborations have come out of being part of a creative community. 

Recently I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to move my studio to a refurbished barn in the beautiful and historic grounds at Chiswick House and Gardens, London. 

We already know you’re interested in the art of fabric and thread – why else would you be here? But perhaps you’re looking for a more tactile read, and the luxury of sitting down and reading a magazine cover to cover? If you’re interested in subscribing to a print (or digital) journal exploring textile art, there’s lots of gorgeous options to choose from. 

Here’s our list of the best textile art magazines. These publications are suitable for readers at all levels. High quality, beautifully illustrated, and aiming to inspire, engage and share, each title brings alive the latest developments and inspirations in textile art. 

Read on to discover these periodical gems: Embroidery, Selvedge, Fiber Art Now, Textile Fibre Forum, Quiltfolk, Quilting Arts and Surface Design Journal.

Embroidery

Embroidery is a beautifully presented long running magazine serving lovers of embroidery and contemporary textile art. It comes from the renowned Embroiderers’ Guild in the UK and was first published in 1932.

Over the decades, Embroidery has become the most well respected review of the art of embroidery and stitched textile art. This magazine inspires and impresses with its mix of textile art features, in-depth artist interviews and colourful artwork shots. There’s a listing of the best exhibitions and events around the UK and beyond, and all the latest news in the world of embroidery. 

Subscriptions are available for readers in the UK, Europe and worldwide. Published six times a year, it will bring you plenty of inspiration. Not to mention the option for incredible access to a vast, fully-searchable digital archive of back issues!

A digital downloadable version is available through Pocketmags, or a single issue pay-as-you-go option is available for those who don’t wish to commit to a long subscription.

Selvedge

Celebrate our communal love of cloth, culture and creativity in Selvedge, an attractive feast-for-the-eyes, square-format magazine. This internationally renowned magazine was launched in 2004 by textile obsessive Polly Leonard, and is published every two months in print and digital formats.

In a magazine as beautiful as the textiles represented within its pages, it features articles on textiles in fine art, craft, design, fashion and interiors, sharing the history and importance of cloth, and its place in the modern world. 

Print magazine subscribers receive complimentary access to the corresponding digital edition. Or subscribers can choose the digital-only version. Back issues are available to buy separately.

Great pride is taken in the printing process, using soy-based inks, paper and packaging produced in an environmentally friendly and socially responsible manner.

Textile Fibre Forum

Textile Fibre Forum is a long-running Australian textile art magazine, in print since the 1980s. Produced by ArtWear Publications since 2011, this quarterly magazine shares the work of textile artists, as well as promoting exhibitions and events, and exploring new techniques and innovations relating to textiles, fibres, and textile art. It has a strong focus on Australian artists and contemporary textiles, with articles from specialist contributors in each issue. 

The subscription price includes postage and handling within Australia. International purchasers pay postage at checkout. Alternatively, you can buy a digital subscription. Print format back issues are also available to purchase separately.

Fiber Art Now

This sumptuous magazine, published in the USA, has a broad remit – perfect for those who like a little bit of everything. It explores all types of textile art, including embroidery, crochet, weaving, felting, book arts, quilting, traditional techniques like shibori and sashiko, and more.

Covering installations, wearables, sculptures, vessels and basketry, wall and floor art, plus engaging artist profiles, there really is something for everyone. 

You’ll get four jam-packed magazines a year, as well as instant access to the archive of digital back issues. Shipping is free in the USA, and international subscribers can either pay for shipping or choose the great value digital-only subscription.

Quilting Arts

In Quilting Arts, you’ll learn more about textiles and techniques for contemporary art quilting and surface design. Published in the USA since 2001, this quarterly magazine is full of informative articles dedicated to promoting the art quilt movement, and is suitable for all levels, from novice to professional quilters and textile artists. 

It provides inspiration, technical information and mixed media insights; its aim being to elevate the visibility of art quilts through education, innovation and inspiration. 

Quilting Arts is available in print format, with a supplement to cover postage outside the USA. Back issues are available separately.

Quiltfolk

Travelling coast to coast from New Jersey to California, the quarterly magazine Quiltfolk visits a different state of the USA in each edition, exploring quilters and quilt stories unique to that region.

Beautifully designed and printed, this magazine is a tactile delight, with a soft cover and gorgeous images showcasing the art of quilting, and will appeal to all quilt makers and quilt lovers everywhere. 

This print-only magazine, first published in 2016, has 164 pages brimming with inspiration, and it is advert-free. Back issues are also available to purchase.

Surface Design Journal

If you’re looking to take your art to the next level, check out the Surface Design Journal from the Surface Design Association. This magazine will help to expand your knowledge on techniques and applications.

It covers textile art, design trends, exhibitions, as well as  interviews with artists, makers, curators and collectors. The journal is published in the USA, but has an international scope. 

This quarterly journal comes with membership of the Surface Design Association, which includes a range of other benefits.

Readers can choose print and digital, or digital-only subscriptions, at different price points depending on your location worldwide. Individual issues can be purchased at the SDA store.

Daniella reveals how letting go of fear has freed her to experiment and evolve. Her ‘don’t think, just do it’ attitude has allowed her to pivot from one medium to another and embrace new techniques. She likes to get herself out of the way and create a non-thinking environment that allows discovery and experimentation to flourish.

‘Everything’s better with shredding’, Daniella says. Through this deliberate destruction, often of everyday waste paper, exciting new formations and configurations emerge. In her search for pattern, Daniella creates something hidden, revealed and concealed. 

Daniella Woolf: I bring order out of chaos. My chosen medium is paper, paper and paper. My techniques are stacking, wrapping, piercing, weaving, glueing and sewing.

My work has something hidden, revealed and concealed. I’m searching for patterns through play and discovery.

I don’t usually plan my work: I ‘doodle’ with materials in the studio, and something will materialise from this non-thinking frame of mind. Then I try to recreate what arrived in that naïve state.

“What materialises when I work consciously is never as good as what comes up when not thinking. I try to practise non-thinking, just doing.”

Daniella Woolf,

For example, lately, I’ve been avoiding looking at which papers I pick up to collage to a surface, thereby discovering what happens by chance.

My process typically begins with writing my stream of consciousness morning pages, or journaling. I have a beautiful, light-filled studio that is my favourite place in the world. It’s my sacred space where I work and have privacy.

I like to work in silence and I work on multiple series at once. I find that when I am doing ‘mindless work’ I will get an idea of how to solve a problem in another series or generate an idea that will start another series.

Freedom through limitations

My problem is channelling my wild mind, rather than not having ideas. I will often use the ‘container’ approach. That is to say that I will limit the amount of things I use to create my work.

I give myself an assignment, for example, use only shades of blue, or work in black and white, with these three pens and a cross-cut shredder.

“I find that limiting my options allows greater freedom of exploration.”

Daniella Woolf,

An overarching long-term goal (now that I’m ancient) is to use up all my materials before I go to that big studio in the sky. I try not to buy anything new and instead use what I’ve got.

Of course, that’s a tall order, especially when I find new products or shiny objects I haven’t used, or some artist demos an intriguing product on the web. However, I love to give myself assignments that fit into my ‘constraints promote creativity’ mantra.

Perfect pandemic project

When the pandemic came along, I thought I’d do a collage every day for a year. Initially, I thought the pandemic was only going to last a few weeks but then it just went on and on. The result was my PPP or Perfect Pandemic Project.

I found myself in the studio first thing every morning, arranging my collage materials, tearing up sketchbooks and making folders of colour combinations.

Using my self-imposed constraints, I used the same size paper: quarter sheets of Rives BFK printmaking paper, 28cm x 38cm (11″ x 15″). I stuck my morning pages in the gutter, and I just went for it with gusto.

I got into a rhythm and some days I made four or even six pieces. I listened to podcasts while I worked.

Usually, I’d work until noon, weigh my collage down, then come back after lunch and zigzag sew the ones from the previous day. Every day, I repeated this (I do have a bit of the OCD, methinks!).

It was surprising how much I loved this daily routine. Until then, I thought of myself as a very social person, but I quickly began to think like a hermit.

I was happy not to have to see anyone, go anywhere and just work in the studio all day. I was stunned to see myself as a recluse.

I finished months early (by 100 days), with all 365 of them complete. Some styles or themes emerged. You can see the entire collection on my YouTube channel, including a time lapse video of me making one page. 

I eventually exhibited them in a local gallery. They were hung in their huge front windows because both the front and back were really interesting to see.

The stitching on the reverse was wonderful, and the light came through the stitch holes. It was deeply gratifying. I am just about to put some of my favourites on Spoonflower as tea towels.

What if?

My work is very repetitive. My mind is fluid. When I’m working, my mind is usually free, and I get a case of ‘What if…?’.

What if I change the gauge of this? What if I do this in ink? What if I make this horizontal or on an angle? What if I glue this to a different substrate? Asking this question may make me change course.

My construction methods are simple: shred, sew, stitch and glue, not necessarily in that order. I love vertical lines and multiples. Most of my works are grid based.

Before I put together my workshop for Stitch Club, I was primarily machine stitching. For the workshop, I was encouraged to provide an alternative to the machine and so I began hand stitching on paper.

Who knew I would love it so much! I appreciate the rigidity of paper and that I can make holes in advance – and follow them or not!

“I follow my gut because it’s always right.

Those still, small voices that say, ‘purple here’ are from a deep knowing place.”

Daniella Woolf,

Years ago, I won the Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship Award, a prestigious art award in our town, and it gave me a new level of confidence. Now, perhaps also because I’m older, I’m less fearful. I’m more willing to experiment, play and have fun. 

I always say, don’t be afraid… don’t think – just do!

Tools of the trade

I couldn’t live without paper, white glue, scissors, an X-Acto knife with #11 blade, a grid cutting board, plus some kind of tape (washi, blue painters’ or masking).

Lately, I’ve been having a love fest with index cards. They are all the same size and you can get them anywhere.

“Shredding always makes everything look better.”

Daniella Woolf,

I’m painting and sketching more. When I want to learn how to do something quickly, I usually go to YouTube. I still have a fear of drawing, but the brilliant Richard Box (author of Drawing for the Terrified) has helped me immensely.

I’m loving my new set of Kuretake-Gansai Tambi watercolours, and also Posca Markers – I love their flat finish. I’ve recently started playing with acrylic inks and refillable markers. 

I love to make colour charts. I’ve been particularly locked into greens and oranges. I’ve been making lots of compositions with those colours: painting the greens, getting paint samples from the hardware store, shredding them.

I’ve written morning pages and followed Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way practice for a long time. Writing helps me clarify things. These pages find their way into my work.

Making time for an ‘artist date’ is also inspiring. I love being in nature, taking walks, simply observing and photographing.

I adore Sonia Delaunay, Pierre Bonnard, and El Lissitzky and the Russian Constructivists (early 20th century artists who made constructed, geometric-based works with a focus on the technical use of materials and referencing the industrial world).

Also, The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones, an elaborately illustrated book of diverse patterns, motifs and ornamentation, first published in 1856.

Seduced by fibre

I started as a biology major in college because I loved science, especially physiology. I wanted to be a surgeon (in those days art was a hobby, not a career, right?).

I always had excellent fine motor skills but I needed maths and chemistry in which my skills were quite lacking! So I changed my major to studio art.

I had shown promise in the arts at an early age, winning an art scholarship at 13, and some awards for jewellery design at 16. 

In 1969 I went to Haystack, a crafts school in Deer Isle, Maine, for a summer session as a jeweller/metalsmith. The jewellers were quite serious and subdued, while the weavers were staying up until all hours of the night, listening to Bob Dylan, and having the most fun. 

One night I went to a talk by Walter Nottingham, a fibre artist. He talked about the magical mythical qualities of fibre and how one of his students had sewn a quilt and put a lock of their lover’s hair in a secret hidden pocket in the quilt. I was hooked.

After the talk, he wrapped my short hair in a zillion colours from the weavery. I had maybe a hundred little coloured ‘palm trees’ with my black hair sticking out all over my head.

“I was transformed at that moment into a textile artist.

I was forever changed.

That was my entry into the textile world.”

Daniella Woolf,

I returned to my college for my senior year and took every textile class they offered. I went on to gain an MA in Fiber at UCLA. It was a magical time. In October 1971, there was an exhibition at the gallery at UCLA entitled Deliberate Entanglements, showing the international rock stars of the textile world.

Simultaneously the Pasadena Art Museum (now the Norton Simon Museum of Art) was having an Eva Hesse retrospective. I remember sitting out in the courtyard thinking that I was in the right place at the right time.

East meets west

My most recent ‘achievement’ is pretty interesting. I was contacted by The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. They wanted a photo of an installation entitled Forest, that I made in 1972, which was shown in the 1975 Tapestry Biennial in Lausanne.

The photo was for a catalogue of a retrospective of renowned textile artist Masakazu Kobayashi (1944-2004). Coincidentally, I was going to be in Kyoto and so I was invited to visit and meet with one of the curators.

It was very exciting and so inspiring. I recently received the catalogue, which is in itself a work of art. Even the bound sections of the text catalogue are sewn with hot pink thread!

I am so proud that a work from so long ago has received recognition. It was my first trip to Japan, and I loved it more than I can say. My only regret is that it took me so long to get there. I hope to return many more times.

Growing up with the movies

My early influences came from our family business. My dad had a prop house in Hollywood. He could supply any props (not costumes) for movies or print media.

There were collections of Native American Kachina dolls (depicting the kachina spirits from the Pueblo cultures), rugs and baskets. He had samovars and copper and silver cooking vessels, tea sets and oil paintings.

There were wagon wheels, dining sets, light fixtures, telephones and furniture of every kind. In fact, our English mahogany Chippendale dining set regularly disappeared, to be used in movies.

My dad’s desk was stacked with fabulous reference books about styles of furniture, architectural ornament and antiques. I looked at these constantly. I used to go to studios and movie sets with him. Disneyland was one of our clients so we went there often.

Another early influence was going to the theatre with my parents. We went to the Civic Light Opera and saw musicals and theatre plays. My childhood was quite culturally enriched.

I remember the musical Oliver having a tremendous influence on me. I was fascinated by the way the set rotated and became a new scene by simply changing the angle.

“I think this is where I began to think about making large scale artworks, and how it relates to human form.”

Daniella Woolf,

Always learning

I learned many things while putting together my Paper: Shred and Stitch workshop for Stitch Club. It had multiple components, some of which I didn’t know how to do and had to learn ‘on the job’, for example, learning how to film properly.

I spent a lot of hours in the studio, steadily chipping away to meet the goals in the time frame. I experienced many ideas sprouting during all this luscious studio time, working every day, being around materials. My ‘What if…?’ questions flowed and I felt inspired to make new work and keep exploring. 

I returned again and again to the simple ‘rules’ in the book Plain and Simple: A woman’s journey to the Amish by Sue Bender: ‘Trust the process. All work is important. All work is of value.

Since all work is honoured, there is no need to rush to get one thing over so you can get on to something more important.’

“Perhaps the biggest thing I learned from this project is to just do.

Don’t think.”

Daniella Woolf,

If it’s being created by you, there is divine inspiration behind it. Don’t judge, just do. Just do a little bit every day.

Much of that early stitchwork was practical in nature, particularly to create clothing. As materials and techniques changed over time, distinctive cultural approaches to design, colour, and embellishment came to life

Textile art played an increasingly important role in expressing cultural histories, folklore, religious narratives, community organisation and family values. Thankfully, many of those textile traditions are alive and well.

Below is a list of books that literally takes you across time and geography. And you won’t have to buy a plane ticket! We start in North America with African American and Native American traditions. Then we head to the African continent, followed by a trek through Asian and Middle Eastern textile techniques. We even have a stop in Mexico.

All of these books feature gorgeous imagery and stories that are both breathtaking and inspirational. So, join us in celebrating the diversity of stitching across the globe.

The quilts of Gee’s Bend

The women of Gee’s Bend in southern Alabama (USA) have been creating vibrant quilts since the early 19^th century. Award-winning author Susan Goldman Rubin explores the history and culture of this fascinating group of women and their unique quilting traditions.

They are especially known for repurposing fabrics in remarkable ways, including old overalls, aprons, and bleached cornmeal sacks. Much to the women’s surprise, a selection of their quilts were featured in a travelling exhibition in 2002.

A New York Times critic reviewing that exhibition described their work as ‘eye-poppingly gorgeous and some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has ever produced’.

The quilts of Gee’s Bend by Susan Goldman Rubin (2017)
^{ISBN 9781419721311} 

Sewing and survival

This book offers a researched narrative based on original sources, diaries, personal letters and other notes highlighting Native American voices. Indigenous Americans have been sewing, weaving, making pottery and other crafts for thousands of years. But ongoing attacks on Native American cultures in the late 1800’s promoted a fascinating shift toward quilt making.

While quilting skills were forced on some women, others willingly took on the craft. It’s compelling to learn that quilting within the Native American culture continued to gain popularity to the point where quilts now serve as cornerstones of many Indigenous give-away traditions.

Author Teresa Wong expertly walks readers through this historical and artistic quilting evolution. Powerful narratives complement images of over 60 quilts, as well as images of significant historical events and portraits of artists and collectors.

The book is available from the author’s website and can be shipped to addresses in Canada, USA, Japan, EU, UK and Australia. The author donates $4 for every book sold to the American Indian College Fund.

Sewing and survival: Native American Quilts from 1880–2022 by Teresa Duryea Wong (2023)
^{Published by Third Floor Quilts}

Colour and creativity across a continent

Traditional handcrafted African textiles are sumptuous, intricate, and steeped in cultural significance. Readers will be introduced to an incredible range of handmade textile techniques found across the African continent.

These include the gorgeous strip weaves of the Ashanti and Ewe, lace weaves of the Yoruba, and mud cloths from Mali and West Africa. The book also explores Berber weaves from Morocco, beadwork from the Zulu, Xhosa, and Ndebele people, and the crocheted, embroidered, and feathered hats from Cameroon.

The book features over 570 colour photographs that complement in-depth information about the influences of religion, culture, trade, tradition, fashion and the changing role of women artists on African textile art. It ends with a guide to public African textile collections, as well as a glossary and suggestions for further reading.

African textiles: Colour and creativity across a continent by John Gillow (2016)
^{ISBN 9780500292211}

Sustainable textiles and mindful making

‘Kantha’ is believed to have originated from the Sanskrit word kontha, which means rags. It refers to both the style of running stitch, as well as the finished quilted cloth made from layers of cast-off fabric embroidered with threads pulled from old saris and dhotis.

Author Ekta Kaul explores this rich tradition through objects of extraordinary beauty that were created to be given as gifts or for use in life event rituals, such as marriage and childbirth. 

Steeped in the ethos of sustainability, emotional repair and mindful making, this book showcases inspiring interpretations of the kantha spirit and discusses creative techniques for readers to develop their own kantha. A dictionary of fundamental kantha stitches with supporting images and instructions is included.

Ekta Kaul grew up in India and trained at India’s National Institute of Design. She received a Masters in Textiles in the UK, and has lived in Edinburgh, Bath, Ahmedabad, Delhi and London. Ekta says living in so many vibrant cities provided a wonderful education in celebrating plurality of perspectives, helping to develop her unique creative style.

Kantha: Sustainable Textiles and Mindful Making by Ekta Kaul (2024)
^{ISBN 9781789940435}

Threads of awakening

When Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo set out to travel the world, little did she know she’d get sidetracked in a Himalayan sewing workshop. Ironically, that sidetrack proved to be her necessary life path.

Equal parts art book, memoir and spiritual travelogue, Leslie shares her experience as a Californian woman travelling to the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India to manage an economic development fund, only to wind up sewing pictures of Buddha instead. 

Tibetans have been creating sacred images from pieces of silk for more than 500 years. Much rarer than paintings and sculptures, these stitched fabric thangkas are among Tibet’s finest artworks. Leslie reveals the unique stitches of an ancient needlework tradition, introduces the Buddhist deities, and shares insights into the compassion, interdependence and possibility they embody.

Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo is a textile artist, teacher and author. She offers an online hands-on apprentice program called Stitching Buddhas that bridges East and West, traditional and contemporary.

Threads of awakening: An American woman’s journey into Tibet’s sacred textile art by Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo (2022)
^{ISBN 9781647420932}

Hmong story cloths

The Hmong people from the country of Laos have a rich tradition of creating story cloths to document their history and cultural legacy. Subjects for the cloths include traditional life in Laos, the Hmong New Year, folk tales and neighbouring peoples.

The Hmong first began making story cloths during their time in refugee camps. Story cloths begin with selecting fabrics and outlining images onto a backing cloth. Fabrics are then cut into the various shapes and appliquéd using intricate satin stitches. Borders are then pieced together and hand stitched. 

This beautiful book features 48 vibrant story cloths that provide a comprehensive look into the makers’ lives and culture. Readers will also find personal stories and artefacts that make this a great book for both history buffs and textile artists.

Hmong story cloths: Preserving historical & cultural treasures by Linda Gerdner (2015)
^{ISBN 9780764348594}

The art of Korean textiles

Bojagi, sometimes called pojagi, is the traditional Korean art of making textile wrapping cloths from exquisitely patchworked fabrics. The careful arrangement of pieces of cloth allows the maker to build unique abstract compositions, which is why this technique often appeals to textile artists and quilters.

In this book, artist and author Youngmin Lee shares the history of this art form and its place in Korean culture. You’ll discover bojagi hand stitch techniques, seam finishes and decorative motifs through a variety of contemporary and beautifully-illustrated projects.

Youngmin Lee is a Korean-born textile artist and educator based in California, USA. In 2017, she founded the Korean Textile Tour, an educational trip for textile enthusiasts. Youngmin has exhibited in the USA and internationally, including at the De Young Open Exhibition, San Francisco, in 2023-2024.

Bojagi: The art of Korean textiles by Youngmin Lee (2024)
^{ISBN 9781789941838}

Shibori for textile artists

Shibori is one of the world’s richest textile traditions. While commonly associated with Japan, the technique has been long used in Africa, India and South America. In this practical guide, textile artist Janice Gunner shows how to combine all geographic shibori methods with contemporary techniques to create stunning textiles bursting with rich intricate patterns and bold colour.

Various creative approaches are clearly explained and illustrated, including tied and stitched designs, folding, clamping, pleating and binding. Simple and safe instructions for a range of dyeing techniques are also provided.

Janice Gunner is an award-winning stitched textile artist, quilter and author. She is a renowned expert on Japanese textile art and was recently awarded The Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles Education and Travel Bursary.

Shibori for textile artists by Janice Gunner (2018)
^{ISBN 9781849945301}

The fabric of life

From the intricate embroidery on a Palestinian wedding dress to the complex iconography on an Afghan war rug, textiles from the Middle East and Central Asia reflect their makers’ diverse beliefs, practices and experiences. This book explores the significance and beauty of textiles from across the vast area and is arranged thematically to enable cross-regional comparisons of the function and symbolic meaning of textiles.

Each chapter focuses on key life events, such as childhood, marriage, ceremony, religion and belief, and homestead. Featured textiles include garments, hats and headdresses, mosque curtains and prayer mats, floor coverings, tent hangings, hand towels, cushions, storage sacks, amulets and much more.

Contemporary works that grapple with modern political issues are also included. The author’s focus on the British Museum’s remarkable collection is sure to provide both education and creative inspiration.

Textiles of the Middle East and Central Asia: The fabric of life by Fahmida Suleman (2017)
^{ISBN 9780500519912}

Last but not least…

Serving a global community of over 60,000 stitchers can sometimes make it difficult to select books that are accessible to all. This is especially true for books that are out of print or self-published. That doesn’t mean they aren’t worth mentioning, though, so we’re sharing a few interesting titles that may be more tricky to locate, but still worth a read.

Phulkari from Punjab: Embroidery in transition

This meticulously researched book traces the history of Phulkari through the ages. Over 350 photographs help bring to life the nearly lost craft, including instances of revival and innovation amongst artists and designers.

Every stitch in Phulkari placed on the fabric tells a story in the form of motifs. Author Shalina Mehta spent seven years searching out those stories across the villages and byways of Punjab, which is considered home for this ancient craft.

Shalina traces the history of Phulkari from its decline to its revival and includes stories collected from practitioners along her journey.

Phulkari from Punjab: Embroidery in transition by Shalina Mehta and Anu H Gupta (2020)
^{ISBN 9781911630180}

Beadwork techniques of the Native Americans

This book focuses on beadwork techniques among the western Plains’ Indians, both past and present. Readers will discover the basics, advanced techniques, supplies and actual examples of beadwork through rich illustrations and easy-to-follow instruction.

Styles include loom work, appliqué, lazy/lane stitch and the gourd (peyote) stitch. Instructions for making and beading moccasins are also included. This book is both instructional and artistic, as it features dozens of images of beaded works housed in museums and private collections.

Beadwork Techniques of the Native Americans by Scott Sutton (2008)
ISBN 9781929572113

Mexican textiles

Mexican textiles are known for their passionate appreciation of colour, pattern and design. Author and photographer Masako Takahashi shares her love of the form by taking readers on a journey to artisan workshops, weaving centres, lace makers and family-owned rug manufacturers.

Readers are given an inside view of how traditional fabrics are designed, dyed, woven and finished. The photos are gorgeous, and the author shares insightful notes on regional differences, history, and technique.

Mexican textiles by Masako Takahashi (2003)
^{ISBN 9780811833783}

“The sense of smell is the hair trigger of memory.”

Research has proven that the nose knows and remembers. The slightest hint of a familiar fragrance can take us back in time and space, and, according to Pallavi Padukone, that phenomenon is good for both wellness and wellbeing. After successfully using aromatherapy to help manage the stress of the pandemic, Pallavi decided to turn the fragrance industry on its head by creating ‘olfactory art’.

Pallavi’s tapestries and embroideries are literally fragrant. She weaves and stitches with yarns and threads soaked in naturally derived scents like jasmine, rose, and sandalwood. She also dyes her materials with Indian herbs and spices including safflower, chilli and turmeric. Pattern, colour, texture and scent combine to recreate memories of Pallavi’s childhood in southern India.

Pallavi continues to finetune her techniques and expand her library of scents, but she has generously taken a moment to offer us an insight into her current process and techniques. 

We wish we could offer you a scratch-and-sniff option while reading about her work, but we promise you’ll still be delighted to learn about her inventive art that tantalises both the nose and the eye.

Pallavi Padukone: I was exposed to different forms of art from an early age. My mother is a graphic designer and used to work at a gallery in Bangalore, India. Growing up, I’d often visit her at work. I was also enrolled in a weekend art class led by one of the artists.

One of my first experiences involving textiles was at a school tie-dye workshop. It was the first time I’d played around with dyeing fabrics.

I also have fond memories of my grandmother teaching me how to embroider. I sat with her in the evenings, and she would patiently show me different embroidery stitches and knots. She also made me a little guide to help me practise.

I studied textile design during my undergraduate education in India. I decided to specialise in textiles because working with my hands came naturally to me. An exchange semester for a fibre art course in Gothenburg, Sweden, really opened my eyes to how complex textiles can be.

I learnt how to view fibres and fabrics with a conceptual lens. I fell in love with using textiles as an art medium after experimenting with different techniques and meeting many interesting people in the field.

I later studied at the Parsons School of Design, New York, where I focused on integrating scent and textiles, using fragrance as a form of embellishment.

Connecting to culture & place

All the materials I use in my work are chosen for their sensorial qualities. There’s a connection to landscape, place and time that is woven into each work’s backstory.

I integrate hand-spun recycled sari silk mixed with scent-coated cotton for my weaves and embroider on silk organza. I retain the existing jewelled colours the silks are sourced in. I am drawn to the way the sheer fabrics interact with light to visually evoke the ephemeral experience of fragrance.

My work is guided by culture and craft, and I believe in the philosophy of respecting the artisanal, the sustainable and the slow.

“I often use nature as my muse for colour, patterns, and materials.”

Pallavi Padukone, Olfactory artist

My Indian heritage also constantly informs my textile art. Textiles are so deeply rooted in India’s history – their richness and craft inform both my approach and design sensibilities for patterns, motifs, techniques and colour.

My use of colour comes intuitively from sights, my surrounding landscape and imagined memories. I can be inspired by something as simple as certain shades of flowers at a market or an interesting colour-blocked sari I spy someone wearing.

Olfactory art

The idea of using fragrance for its therapeutic qualities and its connection to nostalgia and memory resonates with me.

My initial source of inspiration was the calming effect a small pouch of lavender provided while cooped up in my apartment during the 2020 lockdown.That prompted me to explore scents for wellness and how they could be visually expressed through colour, pattern and texture.

As part of my research, I conducted surveys to record the relationship people have with fragrance and their link to memory, emotion, visual imagery, colour and texture.

I then considered how fragrant yarn itself could open doors to possibilities through textile techniques. Through trial and error, I developed a natural coating for yarn that captured scents.

The Reminiscent collection is inspired by the scents and colours of memories and nostalgia connected to my home in Bangalore. There are a total of 14 wall hangings, tapestries and room dividers that stimulate the senses beyond sight with a feeling of familiarity.

The collection keeps evolving as I keep adding to my library of scents. It’s been a fascinating learning process. Reminiscent seeks to reinterpret the fragrance industry by tapping into scent’s ability to serve as powerful catalysts for triggering memories, especially feelings of calm and comfort.

“It’s a way to use textiles as aromatherapy to condense time and distance, as well as create an immersive experience to reconnect with nature, nostalgia, home and identity.”

Pallavi Padukone, Olfactory artist

Creating scented yarns

The six scents that I started my collection with were jasmine, citronella, vetiver, rose, sandalwood and clove. I’ve added hibiscus and ‘spice rack’, which is a combination of cardamom, clove and turmeric. All these fragrances bring me a sense of comfort, and I associate them with the smell of home and my childhood.

“My memories include the scent of sandalwood talcum powder on my grandmother’s dressing table”

Pallavi Padukone, Olfactory artist

Jasmine buds in our terrace garden, rose garlands in the flower market, citronella mosquito repellent during summer months, and the petrichor-like fragrance of the vetiver root that’s reminiscent of the monsoons.

The scented yarn coating I developed is wax based. It’s combined with tree resin and pure essential oils, and then coloured with natural dyes and earth pigments. The mixture is warmed, and the yarns are individually dipped, coated and dried.

The resin helps to harden the mixture. Yarns are then put into sealed bags for them to dry and lock in the scent ready for use in my tapestries. It takes about 48 hours for them to dry and harden slightly before I use them.

When yarns are heated at the right temperature, the combination of wax and resin make them quite malleable and versatile for weaving and embroidery. But they do have limitations.

Since yarns are individually dipped, they’re created in small quantities and not as a single continuous long length of yarn. That equates to a more time-consuming process, but small batches prevent waste because I can estimate how much coated yarn will be needed for each colour and scent.

I also make my own scented beads using the same pigmented and scented mixture used for my yarn, by casting the mixture into customised 3D printed moulds that I designed. I use the beads to embellish my work. Vetiver III is an example where I integrated the beads into the warp of the tapestry.

Fading fragrance

A collection tends to remain fragrant anywhere up to three months, depending on exposure to heat and light. But that impermanence is a reminder of its completely natural state and that it absorbs new smells, just as dyes tend to alter over time.

“It’s a fact that scent is temporary, and because I work with completely natural materials, it will fade over time.”

Pallavi Padukone, Olfactory artist

I keep a record of swatches as a test of the material’s durability and how long both scent and colour last when exposed to heat and light. The yarn and beads can be reactivated by adding another coating of scented oils, but the fragrance still tends to fade. So, part of my ongoing exploration is innovating new ways to replenish fragrances.

I also plan to continue to expand my library of scents to capture other places and memories dear to me.

A natural dye palette

I experiment with different combinations of dye matter to build my palettes. I mix various natural dyes in different proportions with a base of wax and natural resin.

The shades of brown come from walnut, natural earth clays and cutch extract from acacia catechu wood. Ocher pigments, reds and pinks are from madder root, hibiscus and beetroot. The orange colours come from safflower and chilli, yellows from turmeric, and blues and greens from a combination of indigo and turmeric.

“Each work’s dye palette features colours I associate with the memories I hold for each of my fragrances.”

Pallavi Padukone, Olfactory artist

With jasmine, I associate its sweet scent with delicate soft hues of pinks, creams and pastel green. But sandalwood is more a musky, powdery and creamy wood scent, so for this I use more earthy browns and deep wine reds.

Experimental weaving

My first interaction with weaving and using a handloom was during my undergraduate education. I find the repetitive motion of weaving so meditative. I think I truly fell in love with the process of weaving after travelling to Patan, a city in Gujarat, India.

There, I met master weavers who specialised in the complex double ikat weaving technique called ‘patola’ where the warp and weft are resist tie-dyed. I was absolutely mesmerised by its complexity and seeing each step in the process come together to weave the patterns.

I use a handloom, and I’ve more recently begun using tapestry looms or making my own frame looms. 

I call myself an ‘experimental weaver’, as I love weaving with different materials and moving beyond using only yarn. Vetiver roots are a favourite, but they definitely pose challenges that lead to a great learning process.

The roots themselves can be quite brittle, but I enjoy leaning into its limitations. I’m exploring ways to combine machine embroidery with wet felting to help tame the material in ways that keep its natural wildness.

I still have so much to learn and discover, and I primarily teach myself by reading and watching online tutorials for embroidery and weaving. I’m also grateful to live in a city that has access to great libraries, museums, art galleries, talks and seminars that provide great opportunities for inspiration and meeting others in the field.

Vetiver embroidery

In addition to weaving, I also wet felt and embroider on top of the fragrant vetiver (khus) grass root. It releases the most divine petrichor-like scent (like the earthy smell after rain) when activated with water.

I have tried to use vetiver in my woven pieces as well as using it as a dye, but it produces a very light colour that fades quickly.

For my embroidered works, I carefully choose yarns and threads for each piece. I like the simplicity of the running stitch. I also use quite a bit of free-motion machine embroidery, as well as hand smocking techniques on silk organza.

I tend to use cotton threads for embroidery, and polyester or nylon threads for my vetiver root artworks that involve interaction with water.

Tree of life

For my undergraduate final thesis project, I worked on a sculptural hand-woven installation called The Kalpavriksha. I’d say that project was a key turning point in my textile art trajectory.

The work was inspired by South India’s ‘Tree of Life’, which is a coconut palm eulogised as the mythological tree that grants all life’s necessities. Every part of the tree, from its leaves to its roots, can be used for food, drink, shelter, medicinal purposes and more. In Indian tradition, a tree is not just an object of nature. It’s treated as a shrine and source of bounty. 

I collaborated with handloom sari weavers and cane-work artisans from Bangalore. The sculpture symbolises the dissected coconut and represents how every layer of the tree and fruit is valued. The spreading roots made from braided coir (coconut fibre) represent its ever-evolving nature.

The coconut fibre was donated by the coir cluster of Gandhi Smaraka Grama Seva Kendram (Alleppey, Kerala), a non-profit organisation that promotes sustainable agricultural development.

Six fabric information panels accompany the exhibit, with details about why the coconut palm is revered and how it travelled to the Malabar region. The last panel features a folktale from Kerala about its origin. The installation was part of a travelling exhibit funded by the Dutch Consul General and Embassy in New Delhi.

“I find it challenging to put my work out there. Many times, I don’t feel that an artwork is ready, or I overthink some of my pieces.”

Pallavi Padukone, Olfactory artist

Navigating social media

There are times I have ideas in mind, but I need access to more resources or collaboration with an expert to bring them to life. Networking and self-education can provide good advice and guidance, but sometimes I can’t find the information I need to move forward with a project. It’s all a slow learning process.

At other times, just mustering inspiration to make something can be a challenge. When that happens, I’ll visit museums and art shows or travel. Trips back to India to visit my family and source materials always fuels my creativity.

I have mixed feelings when it comes to using social media. I do realise it’s become the standard way to showcase and promote your work as an artist. More people ask for an Instagram handle versus a website or email.

But I do struggle to maintain consistency when posting. Quite often I don’t post because I feel intimidated sharing my work, or I question if a work is ready to be posted.

It’s a challenge I need to overcome. I do use Instagram to follow other artists and designers, and being a textile designer working in the area of home interiors, I use it to stay informed about new developments and interesting projects in the industry.

“You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.”

When Pamela Campagna creates textile art, her approach is to be open and intuitive; this allows the exciting – and even miraculous – possibility of new and unpredicted outcomes. It’s a place where accidents are positively welcomed.

Pamela’s irrepressible drive comes from her passion to gain an understanding of our presence here in the world. She calls upon her own personal experiences: constantly researching materials, techniques and forms that marry her thoughts and emotions into artworks.

Her starting material is often a long length of thread – a simple starting point leading to ethereal artwork that’s both complex and minimalist at the same time.

Pamela’s fascination with time, light, magnetism and space inspire her to explore other materials such as nails, magnets, rust and wood as a way to portray these qualities.

Pamela is a natural nomad who, after 20 years of travelling, is now based back in her home town of Bari in southern Italy. She’s been a graphic designer, an entrepreneur and now has her own atelier – a lovingly created hub where she shares her art and talent with the community.

She’s a dreamer who dreams big – and, for Pamela, this appears a very happy place to be.

Pamela Campagna: I guess I’ve always had a passion for exploring and experimenting. I was born in Bari in 1977 and ever since I can remember I’ve felt the need to travel. When I grew up I went travelling for about 20 years until I became pregnant in 2019 and felt the need to have a stable base. So I’m back in Bari now … but that hasn’t stopped me from dreaming. 

After re-settling here I decided to realise one of those dreams – to open an atelier to the public, a place that is both a working space and an art gallery. I wanted it to have a big window onto the street so that I could welcome people in to see how my art is made, to talk about the process and to learn.

I’ve not only achieved this dream, but it’s also slowly becoming a vibrant place for meetings and workshops for all kinds of arts. I find this exchange both inspiring and enriching.

I’m perhaps best known for adapting existing techniques into something all my own, particularly when working with threads, nails, magnets, rust and wood. The result is a reflection of my nomadic attitude, a wonderful mix of both graphics and crafts, with a focus on exploring our present and our presence.

Since 2011, the core of my artistic research has been experimenting with weaving techniques and image design. I mix graphics and crafts, always looking for new artistic ways that can help us to interpret and understand our presence.

“Through my constant research into different materials, techniques and forms, I aim to make the invisible become visible.”

Pamela Campagna, Thread artist

I create artworks that interact with time, light, magnetism and the environment, to change their appearance and significance, and reveal themselves in unpredicted and surprising ways.

Art to decode life

My work can never be separate from my life. Art is my instrument for decoding my life – my present and my presence seen in a multitude of ways. My art can’t be encapsulated into any one approach or style, and that’s why there are so many heterogeneous expressions in my works.

I imagine my map of inspirations and influences as a vascular system with the blood flowing all in the same direction, even if coming from smaller vessels. I don’t consider any one thing more relevant than others.

“Every step I’ve ever taken and everything I’ve ever seen is influencing me.”

When my mother got sick and sadly died, I needed to understand what had really occurred. It was such an enormous loss, so I used my artworks to explore this sense of emptiness. And when I developed my business MINI Art For Kids, I transformed my experience as a mother into a line of tactile artworks for children.

Lately, I’ve needed to explore new techniques – some quite distinct from fibre art – and I’ve achieved this by organising workshops in my studio, which has had the added bonus of enriching my daily life with ‘real’ relationships.

“For me, art is a way of approaching life, fulfilling my imagination and creating worlds.”

Pamela Campagna, Thread artist

Starting out with textiles

When I originally started working with textiles, my aim was to build complex shapes with just a single thread, using weaving techniques to connect both physically and metaphorically. 

As a graphic designer, I’d been working with visual metaphors, expressing concepts through the use of decontextualisation of specific materials and gestures. There was a time when I wanted to deal with the idea of family, particularly working with a specific image of my mother’s family… It all started from that.

I’ve been prompted in my work by qualities I saw in the amazing trousseaus my parents had from their mothers. They were so carefully embroidered over many hours and communicated such a deep sense of grace, purity and faith. 

Another aspect of my approach probably comes from the chemistry experiments we did in the science laboratory at school. I developed a deep curiosity and fascination for the triggering of cause and effect processes.

All of the ‘design’ aspect of my art is around creating something that has a free outcome, in the sense that the final appearance is subjected to many external factors including the viewer’s own point of view. One example of this is in my White Noise series.

Becoming an artist

Initially, I studied economics, while simultaneously developing my interest in art. That included going to shows, drawing, transforming, attempting, researching and trying to match the two interests together. 

After my graduation in 2001, I took an internship in New York working for Franklin Furnace Archive. I then went to Florence to study a Masters in Management of Cultural Heritage and worked for Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella in their economic office.

It was the beginning of a step into the art world while still trying to use my studies. But I was still always designing, painting and experimenting. 

I founded an artistic collective in Milan, called HEADS, making live paintings mixed with video art, makeup and music. When I met Tomi (tOmi) Scheiderbauer and CALC  (casqueiro atlantico laboratorio cultural: a group of artists, a cultural association and design company), I started working with them as a graphic designer with a little involvement in art and architecture.

After seven years, the artistic part began to take over. At the moment those two worlds are inseparable, and they totally influence one another.

Motherhood & art

Being a mother of a young child, a wife and an artist at the same time is not an easy thing, especially in Italy where there’s not a real system to support artists or autonomous working mothers.

So in the first three years of my son’s life I mostly concentrated on him. I didn’t have time for exploring and experimenting. Nevertheless, that period was beautiful and truly magical.

Through those years of observing my son, I dreamed up and developed a wonderful project: a playful brand called MINI Art For Kids, the main product being a line of tactile artworks made from laser cutting and layering superposed, colourful felt.

It came from a positive intuition and was a great success. It was really satisfying to be contacted by people from all over the world wanting to buy from the different lines I’d created.

But at a certain point, I missed the language and mystery of art being a part of my daily routine, and I realised I didn’t want to be just an entrepreneur. So I went back to my art and experiments, my son grew up a bit and I organised my day in a different way so that I could again pick up the ‘threads’ of the experimentations I’d left behind.

Sparks that become art

Mostly my art comes from the urgency of seeing something new, something that’s previously been missing from my outlook, absent from my emotional landscape. Sometimes I have a clear message to communicate, sometimes it’s a suggestion – an emotion that can’t be defined. Depending on that, I decide the subject, the technique and materials, and then I go deep into creation.

I always start from a sketchbook. I need to write down just a few lines and a few words to figure out the metaphor I’m looking for or the intention. Based on that I decide the technique I will use. There’s often a narrative that I’ve decided, but nothing is too defined. I always leave it open for accidents.

Depending on the technique I’m going to use, I have a specific way in which to draw the artwork. For every technique, I have a method of bringing a project forth.

Then I begin to work with my iPad and stylus. Since I often work with superposition or layering of images, it’s useful to make samples to get an approximate idea of the outcome. But, of course, nothing is totally defined.

“I like to think of my process as a ritual in preparation for the miracle to come.

This ‘open’ part of the creative process is exactly the reason that pushes me to begin.”

Pamela Campagna, Thread artist

I believe that there’s never one point of view, and no one point of view can last forever. I aim to create something that can change with us, and generate doubts and new thoughts or keys to understanding our present.

“My art has to be seen from different perspectives – it helps to blink the eyes or squint.

I ask for some effort from the viewer, because nothing in my work is overtly obvious.”

Pamela Campagna, Thread artist

Optimum fibre

I have a wonderful technical sponsor, Cucirini Tre Stelle, based in Milan. They provide me with many different kinds of high quality fibres in infinite colours and shades.

This is absolutely great because it pushes me to explore how every fibre can influence every work, depending on the thickness and luminosity.

For many years, I’ve been developing embroidery, weaving, tufting and bobbin lace techniques based on using ikat fabric, a material woven using dyed yarns to create patterned fabric. But often I disaggregate and minimise this concept to produce something which is both from the past and the future at the same time.

For example, in the BIG KNOTTHING series and the MIRAGE series I’ve worked in the warp and weft separately, leaving space between every line to give the image a rarefied appearance, close to the feeling of a distant memory.

In the MACROembroidery series I’ve brutalised the fine gesture of embroidery, fixing a continuous bundle of wires, made of five or six different threads, with a staple gun.

Be true & flexible

If I had to offer advice to anyone, I’d say be honest. Don’t copy, but transform and be respectful of the ideas of other artists. 

Find your real tool of expression and go deep into it, but at the same time don’t be its hostage – and change direction if you feel like it. Remember that art is a profession and a way of living and relating with your surroundings.

The biggest challenge for me is staying authentic to myself and feeling deeply what I’m saying with the piece I’m creating.

Authenticity is really difficult when it comes to commissioned works, which for years were a part of my practice. That’s why I’ve now greatly reduced the time I spend on those.

It’s difficult being a fibre artist right now, working with ‘real’ material, which requires lengthy consideration prior to doing the work, many hours in its creation, and then once it’s online it is eaten up by the web very fast.

We’re bombarded every day with images (real or AI-generated) that influence the sense of our work. Generated images can look like super elaborate crafted artworks, not actually existing in reality, and would require an enormous amount of energy to be realised in textiles.

“My greatest challenge is to keep the flame of my passion for art alive. As a woman in the cave fighting the beasts, I use that fire to keep safe and secure from the soul thieves.”

After having concentrated on local dynamics, private commissions, workshops and my project for kids, I feel that now is the right time to put together a show and an itinerary project abroad. I’m imagining, also, a more dimensional and collaborative approach. That’s my desire … but let’s see what life brings to me.

While free motion embroidery has been her trademark, Leisa has also mastered an abundance of skills – from weaving to painting and casting, as well as basketry, crochet, sewing, draping, silkscreen printing, 3D printing and laser engraving. Any of these might play a part in her intriguing artworks.

Leisa’s deep-rooted sense of social justice often leads her to create works that portray her thoughts and feelings about topical issues. Her own life journey – which has seen her battle illness and deafness – has coloured her approach to her art.

Displaying a distinct strength of will and determination, Leisa has overcome adversity. She’s notched up awards, exhibitions, commissions and a book series, and travelled the world while running businesses, studying, teaching and bringing up two daughters.

With a half century of artistry under her belt, and refusing to allow health issues or the passing of time to stand in her way, Leisa is now embracing 3D printing and even uses AI to generate ideas. This is one mighty textile artist who never gives up.

So many possibilities

Leisa Rich: I’m an experimental artist who transforms common and alternative materials in unique ways. I utilise fibre techniques that include free motion stitching, as well as modern technology such as 3D printing and laser engraving. My art works and pseudo-utopian, hyper-real environments suspend reality and sometimes invite interaction.

“I have a very vivid imagination of a quite utopian nature.”

Leisa Rich, Textile artist

In my imagination, there’s a spectacular world, similar to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Little Shop of Horrors, or to the places conceived by Dr Seuss where there are wonderful things to touch and experience (but the people coexist happily!).

At first, it was merely a fascination with materials and process that led to my interest in pursuing a career in fibre arts.

However, as I continued in this art discipline into my twenties and beyond, concept became increasingly important – domesticity, women’s and children’s issues, forming personal identity, making tactile human connections, provoking viewer interaction, pulling viewers in for a closer look – these began informing my practice and have continued today as I make connections between my personal and global life and my art.

I’m also quite inquisitive: I love learning, exploring new directions, pushing the limits of materials, techniques and concepts. Fibre art is perfect for that.

Although every visual art form has possibilities inherent to it, in genre, artistic influence, material choices and more, I really believe that textile art has a distinctive advantage over other art media due to its variety – painting and printing on textiles, sculptural forms in felt, mixed media constructions, digital images on fabric, jacquard weaving, drawing via machine or hand embroidery and more – the list is endless.

Shaped by ups & downs

I was probably subconsciously drawn to fibres as a very young child. Tactile things have always comforted me. I spent years in hospital due to my deafness. My mother would bring Barbie clothes she’d made for me, and I would finger paint in silence in the art room. 

Although I do now have hearing in one ear, I prefer to work without auditory distractions. One illness led me to a weaving class when I was 15. Three days in, I knew I had found the direction of my career and the passion of my creative life. 

My experiences guided me. I had huge medical challenges, parents who never understood me, growing up in Canada in a natural environment surrounded by farms, living on a lake, with the ever-changing, sometimes harsh and sometimes stunning beautiful seasons inherent to living in the north. Summer camp, a very artistic and talented sister and brother-in-law, teachers who eschewed and ridiculed me, important people who shunned me, and blue collar people who embraced me – these are the things that have moulded me in many ways.

“Dyeing and weaving paved the way for learning, growth and experimentation in fibres and mixed media.”

Leisa Rich, Textile artist

The cathartic ritual of weaving, the earthy ritual of communing with nature in the early 70s, while gathering plants for yarn dyeing, the meditative process of dyeing and the interesting sculptural elements from assorted organic materials all influenced my learning.

Moths & hippy artworks

My very first artistic influences were my sister and her husband. My sister was a talented artist with an MFA from Michigan State University. She later went on to graduate from MIT in architecture and is now an architect in Seattle. My ex-brother-in-law, a painting professor at Michigan State University for 27 years, painted professionally until his death in his 80s. Their house was an artistic springboard for me. The ethnic food parties they threw, attended by the art professors and deans of MSU, exposed me to wild points of view, exciting perspectives, creative ideas and the open-minded art world that abounded in the 60s and 70s.

I was also greatly influenced when, in 1976, I met and spoke with the Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz, a pioneer of fibre-based sculpture and installation, whose art practice I admire to this day. I made the work Venus’s Hair shortly after meeting Magdalena. This piece met its untimely death in the mid 1990s after becoming infested with moths and larvae. It was a demise common to thick, hairy, hippy artworks hung on a wall for long periods of time.

Overcoming obstacles

There are positives and negatives about who we are as people and as artists. All of it is fodder for ideas and direction. I’ve worked hard to turn these negatives into positives, and I still struggle to do so. Negative experiences in some people raise their hackles enough so that they rise above in spite, and thus it is in my case. When I was dealt deafness and numerous other physical challenges, I refused to let them get me down and I strove to overcome them.

“When my father said: ‘Why can’t you paint pretty pictures and make money, or get a real job?’, I ignored him and worked harder to be a better artist.

I drew on my love of nature and used it in my art.”

Leisa Rich, Textile artist

When I hung out with the university art professors at my sister and brother-in-law’s parties, I listened and learned from their artistic conversations and debates. When my famous fibre arts professor ignored me and focused instead on her talented, pet graduate students, I took university classes in other art school disciplines and learned invaluable skills.

I talked my way into a job as a knit, leather and fur designer in the mid 1980s for an international company and when the other designers refused to speak to me, the production staff taught me everything I needed to know, on their own time.

These are the influences I carry with me to this day. I’m not impressed with someone who is superficial or pretentious. Rather, I am impressed with their integrity, honesty, kindness and true interest in a fellow artist.

Globetrotting & growth

Although I spent my early childhood in the company of many professional artists who were connected to my sister and brother-in-law, it wasn’t until 1975 when I went to Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, that I took art seriously.

There, I specialised in fibres for 10th grade. I still have a little slip of paper from my public high school 9th grade art class that says: ‘Leisa has an affinity for art’. That teacher must have seen something in me that I didn’t really discover until the following year.

I returned to Canada, my country of birth, to attend the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in the fall of 1978. Unhappy with its programme, I took a semester off, then attended the University of Michigan, studying for a BFA in Fibres.

I ended up using my art degree to do fashion design for a number of years, first with Norma, an international fashion design company based in Toronto. While at Norma’s, I got married and had my first daughter. I then started a business on my own, creating wearable works including sweaters, hats and jewellery that were worn on prominent television shows and featured in magazines.

I have always taught, so I decided to return to school for a teaching degree in art, while running a full-time business and raising my daughter, which I completed at the University of Western Ontario Althouse College of Education.

I had several moves from Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia to Kauai, Hawaii to Dallas, and from Texas to Atlanta, Georgia. We decided to sell off everything we owned to travel around the world.

We covered England, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. All of this travelling, with my husband and six-year old daughter thrown in, means I’ve had many diverse experiences and influences studying the art of many cultures.

We later had another baby, and while teaching part time, I returned for my Master of Fine Arts in Fibres at the University of North Texas, graduating in 2007.

“I have always had my cake and eaten it – what you can conceive of can become reality if you put your mind to it.”

Leisa Rich, Textile artist

I want to encourage those who hesitate about going back to art school to go for it, if that’s what will nurture and further your creative experience. During all of this moving and travel I always worked part or full-time and raised two daughters. I love going to school and learning.

If I could, I would continue my education in various programmes, as the professors and fellow students encountered in an institution of learning always inspire me and help me creatively grow.

From Facebook to fabric stores

My work has got better both technically and conceptually as I’ve worked, researched and practised.

I’ve found Facebook – yes, Facebook – to be a huge inspiration for ideas and research. Things posted there led me to do research in areas I might never have been exposed to, such as new literature that’s just come out.

This includes art books, research papers on art, technological advancements, TED Talks on a variety of subjects, art, artists, exhibitions, art-related ideas, information about environmental issues that are important to me as a vegan, individual discussions about politics, and food.

These have led me down wonderful, and sometimes frustratingly difficult-to-navigate bunny holes. I’m a very sensitive person and my heart is poured into my work.

When it comes to developing my ideas, I’ll sketch if I need to, but I’m really a 3D person and don’t enjoy paper and drawing implements. My sketches are the million ideas fully formed in my head, so many that if I lived a thousand years I wouldn’t be able to create them all.

I have a great stash of materials of all kinds in my studio. What I use really depends on what I come across. For instance, I recently noticed a really crazy, distressed fabric at Fabricland, near my home. No one was buying it, so it was discounted to $6 a metre!

I bought four metres of the off white and brought it to my studio. By the next day I was back at that same store. I bought everything they had in the off white, as well as a minty green, a flesh pink, and a blue-black. What am I going to do with 40 metres of fabric?

That’s often how it works… I will see something, buy it and, for sure, maybe an hour later, or three months later, or even 15 years later, a fully formed idea will pop into my head for it, and the process of realising it begins!

“Since I’m so experimental, everything is always changing. I’m always pushing materials, explorations and learning new techniques.”

Leisa Rich, Textile artist

I struggle sometimes with my need for experimenting, in an art world that keeps telling me to stick with one thing and only one thing! However, when I try to be anything but what I am, I’m desperately unhappy.

Harnessing artificial intelligence

I’ve always incorporated multiple methods and materials in experimental ways in addition to free motion embroidery. But as I’ve got older, I’ve experienced carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis, which has meant I can do less handiwork.

So I purchased a 3D printer some years ago. It means I’ve been able to combine fibrous materials and processes, along with plant-based biodegradable plastics to form new art pieces. 

I’ve also added AI (artificial intelligence) and laser cutting on a Glowforge machine to the techniques I use in my work.

I’m approaching the utilisation of AI in a much different way than the methods used by many 2D artists though; I provide my name as a prompt (it’s been trained on my data – that was really weird to find out!), as well as suggested textures, and the AI gives me plenty of visuals I can choose from and work with.

I use the chosen image to create pieces that go through my laser cutter, which works with a variety of materials such as wood, reflective or shiny plastics, even fabrics. I’m just at the beginning of this type of exploration, but the AI images generated from this so far have been super exciting! 

The first thing I fully used it on is an elaborate neck piece for my WOW (World of Wearable Art) 2024 entry. I’m going to be focusing soon on pushing the envelope with textiles in the laser cutter.

My husband is my techie god, and we are both making sure we know how to use the cutter at its optimum before committing to fabric – with textiles if you put the wrong one in you have yourself a fire!

My home is an ever-changing showcase for my work. I know when something is a favourite when I realise I don’t want to sell that piece, like my monumental work, Father, Son and Holy Ghost (2021).

It’s taken up permanent residence in our master bathroom, and we chose the dramatic wallpaper to set it off. This work is from the body of work I’ve been making since my move back to my home country, Canada, in 2020.

A rewilded life

Now that I am in my mid 60s, first and foremost I must make my health a major priority. While my ideas and creative passion are still young, physical challenges that come with being an ageing artist have reared their ugly head and it can be scary. 

I’m still searching for the holy grail: the dollars, backing, assistants and opportunities to realise very large-scale installations. And I want the plethora of ideas I have, and my prolific production of works, to be put to good use in amazing spaces, as well as selling my smaller works. I still want to travel more and to become a more knowledgeable vegetable gardener.

When we moved back to Canada we bought a 100-year-old farmhouse with over three acres of land on Howe Island, overlooking the beautiful St Lawrence River near Lake Ontario. It’s very quiet and only accessible by ferry.

We’ve been rewilding it, which included returning most of the mown property to wildflowers and trees, removing all fossil fuels, installing geothermal and solar energy supplies, and adding structures that use the green building concepts from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified architecture system.

It’s a haven for white-tailed deer, coyote, fox, mink, birds, bugs and many more creatures. We labelled our property ‘Safe Zone’ as we also don’t consume animals or animal products.

“This move to a wild place, with no doctors, no retail, no street lights even, has meant I’m very attuned to nature’s rhythms.

My recent works have reflected that.”

Leisa Rich, Textile artist

Supporting role

I’m excited to tell you I have a gorgeous dream studio – finally! When we extended our house, a studio was included in the plans. It’s 1000 sq.ft, with 16ft (5m) high ceilings and pro-track lighting, and can be configured as a gallery, workshop or event space. 

In summer 2023, we established a foundation for fibre artists and welcomed our first resident artist from the Textile Museum of Canada. Artists live and work on our property, and have access to an outdoor studio, as well as working with me in the indoor studio.

Future summers will see more sponsorships, scholarships, and residencies supported by me and my husband, in association with Craft Ontario, The Textile Museum of Canada, and Contemporary Textile Studio Co-op, based in Toronto. All the details are available on their websites.

The co-operative is a four-month programme so either for people who live in Toronto or those who can stay there for four months.

Educate for the future

This is a really weird time to be an artist, with AI radically changing the way art is produced. I fear for 2D artists, who are already facing a time when the validity of their original art will be questioned.

Perhaps their work will no longer be sought after, since others will be able to make their own ‘great art’ right from their computer and phone. This is a very volatile scenario… we’ll have to see what happens.

“Textile artists have a brief respite from that right now, since our work is tactile and dimensional and presently impossible for AI to do… but that time will come.”

In the future, robots will receive prompts from the AI and dye some yarns or weave some cloth, print fabric, or build sculpture. I would suggest that aspiring textile artists become aware of technological changes coming down the pipeline and figure out in advance how they can adjust what they do in order to deal with that.

And – the advice I give everyone – gauge your impact on the environment. If you’re doing plant dyeing but eating animals, your contribution to negative climate change is larger than your positive impact is from choosing organic working materials.

“Awareness and educating oneself will be the most important skill in this new vista.”

Leisa Rich, Textile artist

As you will see, her images pack an unexpected punch. While the familiarity of the embellished surface draws us in, it’s her expert use of colour and tonal variations that bring her portraits and narrative works to life.

Jess uses her art to communicate about how she feels. Her work is thought-provoking and complex. She is compelled to express her stance on issues including feminism and social injustice through her stitched portraits and elaborate narrative works. 

While making portrait sculptures during the early years of her life as a textile artist, Jess became more and more interested in embroidery. Now it’s her main focus. She urges you to dig deep and figure out your ‘Why?’, as it will help you to concentrate on what is important to you in your own art-making.

Upcycled monsters & contoured portraits

TextileArtist: What initially attracted you to textiles and, in particular, stitch as a medium?

Jess De Wahls: The birth of my goddaughter was the event that initially triggered my love for textile art. I wanted to create something tactile, artistic and with meaning attached. It was this need that got me to pick up a needle and thread. Back then, I simply sewed funny monsters from upcycled clothing.

These little creatures took on a life of their own, growing into a full-blown exhibition in 2011 at the Resistance Gallery, London, UK. This rapidly evolved into more complex work and led me to recycled textile sculpture – Retex sculpture – a unique medium that I developed myself. 

Portraiture is important to me. I am drawn to faces because they are just incredibly interesting to me. The stories they tell, often without even meaning to, is something that has always fascinated me. I also love embroidering hands for the same reason – hands tell you a lot about a person.

My paramount themes are social injustice, period poverty and gender inequality. I also target the problems of textile waste and develop creative upcycling solutions. Being entirely self-taught has endowed me with the freedom to establish my own voice and unique approach towards the age-old medium of embroidery, a medium which continues to be undervalued and dismissed as merely ‘craft’. 

Whatever the context, bygone or contemporary, the breaking and re-shaping of preconceived ideas about textile art is integral to my work.

Organic inspirations

How do you go about developing a narrative for your work?

I always work on several pieces at the same time and, while doing this, I ponder about many thoughts and concepts. Doing something with my hands, in solitude, has inspired many of my ideas, which I write down as soon as they appear. Sometimes I won’t revisit these for a month or even years.

“I don’t set out to intentionally develop narratives, it’s more organic than that. It all happens quite naturally.”

I also listen to podcasts and audiobooks while I stitch. These provide much food for thought. Last but not least, my slight obsession with reading has inspired many a narrative. In the end, the stories I tell all develop mostly of their own accord.

French knot frenzy

Tell us about the work Nevertheless, She Persisted…

In 2022, I was invited to exhibit in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. My work had been removed from sale at the Royal Academy in 2019 after I had created a controversial embroidery piece with a companion essay. There followed a two week-long major news story in the national press. Eventually, I received an apology from the RA and the chance to take part in their annual show.

The theme of the show was Climate, and for this, I created Nevertheless, She Persisted. The work imagines the sixth mass extinction, where most humans don’t make it, but the earth, bees, plants and fungi heal themselves and tidy up the mess we created. 

At the time I made it, it was the largest embroidered piece I had ever created – it’s enormous! There were many moments in which I questioned my decision to use french knots made up of multicolour-combined threads to depict sand. Ultimately it was the right decision. 

Much like with my other work, I had an initial idea, which I left to percolate for a while before I began drawing. As it’s a huge composition, I had my drawing printed onto a large piece of fabric and then got stitching. I only had four months to complete it, including getting it framed. It was a 12-hours-a-day kind of job, which I’ll admit isn’t how I enjoy working. But the opportunity was too good to pass, so I did it. The technique is the same I use in all my multi-coloured works – a combination of large seed stitches, colour blending and many french knots.

Tell us about the style of your work…

Feminism, the kind of second wave ‘makes things better for women’, ‘centre women’s issues’ and ‘advance female liberation’ type of feminism, is what I subscribe to. I like to address these ideas while weaving lush florals and botanicals throughout the storyline. Mother Nature commonly has an intrinsic feminine quality, so to me it feels quite fitting to connect the two themes visually.

I make large, detailed and heavily stitched embroideries, as well as smaller sketchy thread drawings. The two styles are usually reserved for different things – though I might merge them a little in the future. 

The thread sketches emerged out of the covid lock-down and grew from an idea into a neat little side hustle. The large embroideries are usually how I work through my ideas in thread, and these seem to be growing ever larger with time. 

An initial drawing for a large piece can live in my files for quite some time until I am ready to stitch it. I pretty much always work on one or two commissioned pieces at the same time as working on my own creations. While I map out the piece as a drawing, the actual stitching – including the colour choices – happens more on the go.

Communicating with the world

Which direction do you think you’ll take in the future? 

I have so many ideas and plans, and mostly not enough time in this life – I also have a toddler dancing around me most days now. I am working on a solo show I am hoping to open in a couple of years. It will be an epic collection of large scale embroideries that will no doubt rattle some feathers in certain circles and open eyes in others.

Art, in the end, is my way of communicating with the world. If some can’t handle that, that’s okay with me. I don’t set out to be a contrarian, but with so many people nowadays too afraid to say what they think, I stick out like a sore thumb. I refuse to toe the party line with my explorations in thread.

My pieces have grown significantly in size, so I anticipate more of that in the future. I’ve also picked up crochet over the past couple of years, so I’m sure this will make an appearance in my work.

You first became known for your Retex sculptures – do you still make this kind of work? 

I no longer spend time doing Retex sculptures, but then everything has its season. Who knows, I might revisit sculpture at some point.

I used old garments as a source of fabric for the Retex works. Cushion filler helped to create depth, raising the silhouette off the canvas. This allowed me to do some relief shaping and sculpting during the portrait process. 

The waste culture of our consumerist societies is something I have difficulty with, so it came naturally for me to utilise recycled clothing rather than newly bought fabrics. I made a self-imposed rule of making do with what I had in the studio. As a result, the Retex works are unique and impossible to recreate.

Somehow these pieces got more and more intricate. One day, much of the background was embroidered, rather than sewn-together fabric. So, for all intents and purposes, I fell into the world of embroidery entirely by chance. Now it’s what I love to do more than anything else. 

I think my portrait of the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi is one of my favourite Retex sculptures. I love how wonderfully colourful it is and how much embroidery is part of it. I also feel a kinship towards her after her public hounding for her views and how gracefully she dealt with it all.

You aim to elevate the perception of embroidery and its consideration as fine art. In what ways are you tackling this?

As the years go by and my work is being commissioned and collected by more and more patrons, I feel that in part I am doing my bid just by doing what I do. Sticking to my convictions and speaking up for what I believe in has garnered a lot of attention, not just on myself as a person, but towards embroidery as an art form. I am quite proud of that.

I no longer seek to fit in with the commercial art scene and have carved out my own niche instead. Introducing embroidery as an art form to as many people as possible is what I set out to do, and that’s exactly what I am doing.

Do you have one or two practical tips for other people making textile art? 

My practical tip is not to compare yourself to others, ever! There will always be somebody ‘better’, but this knowledge is irrelevant and actually useless to your own practice.

Really dig deep and figure out what is your ‘Why?’. This is important, because otherwise you will just be floating around without much of a plan – that gets you nowhere.

Once you figure out your motivations, then you can make a practical plan on how to get there, be it improving your technique, working on your marketing skills, or whatever else it might need. For the rest, the internet is a vast well of information – you can find all you need there and in books.

Don’t get hung-up on sticking with old-fashioned techniques once you’ve become proficient in them. Learn them and then take them where they serve you and your goals. 

For example, I couldn’t care less about traditional transfer methods in embroidery. I draw all my pieces on the Procreate app on an iPad, then I get them printed, or I print directly at home if the piece is smaller. I have no time or patience for the traditional transfer processes. For me, what matters in the end is the actual embroidery, not the drawing.

Most important, and often forgotten, remember to have fun.

The two artists had known each other for a long time so they quickly grasped the potential benefits of working together. Each gained insights from the other’s work while meeting online and in the studio.

Amanda was able to incorporate weavings made by Johanna, which added an extra element of interest to her compositions. And Amanda’s experiments triggered new ideas for Johanna. This co-working experience helped to motivate them both and accelerate their progress.

When you read on, you’ll find inspiration and ideas for working with others, and discover how collaboration can elevate your art to a new level. Through a productive phase of shared activity, Johanna and Amanda were able to release feelings of protectiveness of their own work, bounce ideas off each other, and allow their work to evolve into a cohesive gathering of exhibits. 

There’s more than one way to stimulate your creative ideas – and collaborative working might be just what you are looking for.

Accumulating, remembering, archiving…

Can you tell us a little about the art you make?

Amanda Britton: Utilising unconventional materials including paper, vellum, resin and plexiglass, the work I make is like intricate fabrics, ‘woven’ with a variety of techniques, colours, and constructions.

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of migration – moving towards some things and away from others. The ways in which we shift, change and create patterns, rituals and repetition. 

Creating intersections, remembering, and archiving the parts that are left behind, my work takes the form of sewn collages on paper, bringing together fragments of material, paper, and found objects – or casts of those objects. 

I’ve always been interested in the perpetuation of relationships between people and the exploration of families, place, narrative and language. Concerned with documentation and preservation, my work is personal in concept, yet quirky and humorous in delivery. 

Johanna Norry: My work employs the traditional techniques of weaving, hand knitting, coiling, embroidery and stitching. Often I create work that combines comforting materials with unexpected forms. I take a similar approach when I am collaging and working with photos, whether family snaps or found images, or mining memories – working with real and metaphorical archives. 

My artistic process is to respond to my research in a way that culminates with art and installations that are themselves a sort of documentation, whether an accumulation or manipulation of evidence. The resulting work might appear incomplete, and distorted, with only a fraction of the truth remaining, as revealed by my material interpretations. 

I used to see my textile work and my collage work as separate. Recently, those lines began to blur. It began with appliqué textile collage and quilted portraits, and morphed into woven photos, piecing together my hand woven and hand knitted material in the same manner as I might assemble various photos and papers into a more traditional collage. 

The metaphors of weaving, stitching and collage are always at the forefront of my art making thought process. My work is usually about my inner life, my identity, my values and obsessions, my connection to my family and ancestors, and I combine disparate parts as a way of illustrating how I am made up inside – different parts, different experiences and different inheritances, sometimes cohesive and sometimes incongruous. 

What initially attracted you to textiles as a medium? 

Amanda: My mother, Heather Britton, ignited my passion for textile art and design. I grew up falling asleep to the hum of her sewing machine – she’s a novice sewer and also worked in the carpet industry for more than 40 years. 

Johanna: My husband’s mother was a textile artist and weaver, with a weaving studio in Rochester, New York. She had several weavers who came to her studio each day to weave her commissions. Sadly, she died from cancer just a few years after I met her. I inherited everything from her studio including her loom, her tools, her yarn and her notes. 

I was pregnant at the time and the last thing I had time for was learning to weave. It all went into storage and I made myself a promise that I would learn to weave on the same schedule she did When my son turned five, I signed up for a weaving class. I was immediately hooked and took classes for several years. 

One of my weaving teachers suggested I take a dyeing class at Georgia State University. After just a few weeks I knew that I wanted to make art and be in the textiles classroom, for the rest of my life. 

While pursuing my Textiles BFA and MFA, my work expanded beyond weaving, and incorporated embroidery, knitting, digital processes, piecing and quilting, and felting. I chose the process that I thought best suited the concept I was exploring.

As an older student, others assumed that I already knew how to do all these things, but it was all new to me. The last time I’d used a sewing machine was when I got a C grade for a wraparound skirt made in my junior high home economics class. 

My gravitation toward fibres wasn’t based on familiarity of technique, but rather the familiarity with fabric. We adorn our bodies and homes with fabric, and the textures, patterns and colours can elicit memories and nostalgic longing.

My work with fibre may have started with the inheritance of a loom, but I really can’t imagine any other medium being better suited for communicating my ideas about the human experience.

Long term support

Tell us more about how this collaboration came about… 

Johanna: Amanda and I met in graduate school at the University of Georgia. For two years, our studios were next door to each other. It was awesome. And while I think I was subtly aware of the specialness of that time, and the luxury of devoting time to making our own work within a supportive community, I wasn’t quite prepared for how much I would miss it when I moved on. 

It turned out that Amanda also missed it and, fairly soon after she graduated, we decided to meet occasionally, if not regularly, to support each other and critique each other’s work. 

While our show’s name Common Thread refers to the relationship we began to observe in our current work, the truth is there was already a thread – conceptually, if not aesthetically – in our graduate school work as well.

Amanda’s work was tethered to her family memories and the ephemeral nature of memory itself, and my work was also rooted in family, in research, and unearthing hidden family secrets and exposing them to the light of day through my art.

We had both been regularly making and showing work in juried shows since graduation. But we were also both beginning to accumulate work that felt like it needed to be shown all together.

‘Our decision to work towards a show together, Common Thread, was so organic that I cannot even remember who thought of it first.’

Johanna Norry, Textile artist

Once we had decided to collaborate, it motivated both of us to flesh out work we had started, and to make more, knowing that if our proposals were accepted, we would need to do a lot of work to fill a gallery. As we were making new pieces, that’s when the collaboration conversation began – the intentional back and forth development process, responding to elements we observed in each other’s work.

Back & forth process

Tell us about the collaboration process…

Johanna: Amanda and I began to prepare for our first duo show at Berry College, Georgia, in the summer of 2023. Initially, we worked separately in our home studios, communicating by texting photos of our work to each other.

Then we organised several joint studio days where we would bring our works in progress – works we considered finished – as well as remnants, and uncommitted bits of cloth that we had created by one method or another. 

Pieces migrated from my table to hers, and vice versa. For example, I had a long and narrow woven test sample, which Amanda saw with fresh eyes; she cut it in two and incorporated it in an installation of dyed organza strips that she had sewn ephemera into. 

Our process was like a conversation – a back and forth. I would see something in Amanda’s work, like the way she was using family beach photos, shells and references to the migration of sea birds. I realised that I also had 1970s family photos taken at the beach that I could use, and my own collection of rocks and shells.

This led to my weaving together old family photos, pairing them with collages of woven remnants, and combining rocks and shells with off-loom wovens in plexiglass boxes, as companions to Amanda’s natural history display-inspired assemblages.

How did you achieve the collaboration, logistically? 

Amanda: Thankfully, both Johanna and I live and work relatively close to one another in North Georgia. Over the summer, my university’s facilities were open and available, which allowed us a central location to meet and make. While we did call and meet online, our most productive days were those shared in the same studio space. 

Our advice for anyone collaborating or wanting to initiate a collaborative project is to let it be organic. Partner with someone you respect and are excited by their work. Ask yourself if you see a connection in your work, while still being distinct from each other.

‘A collaborative connection might be the theme, process or an aesthetic. If there’s a connection between you, that you think others could see as well, then that’s a good place to start.’

Amanda Britton, Textile artist

While it was awesome that we could meet and work together in the studio, it would equally be possible to collaborate with someone in another city, thanks to Zoom and ease of sharing virtually.

Evolution & unification

Did the project’s exhibition feel as cohesive as you hoped?

Amanda: We had a lot of wonderful feedback from both students and staff at Berry College. The work covers so many different techniques, mediums and interests, including photography, textiles, sculpture and installation, yet it was unified by colour and archiving concepts. 

We wanted to push the visuals and create an unexpected viewer experience. I think we captured this with scale variations and colour juxtaposition of the work.

However, and I think Johanna would agree with me, as soon as the exhibition went up we knew the work would likely shift and evolve as it travelled to its next location. Edits and considerations have been vital throughout. 

How did you help your audience understand the connections built through the collaboration? 

Amanda: Johanna and I are very intentional about the layout of our travelling exhibition. Not only have we considered the space of each gallery (the Moon Gallery at Berry College is expansive with low ceilings, whereas Westobou is a tight space with high ceilings), but we are also interested in conceptualising new or alternative display methods. 

Like paintings, textile works tend to be displayed in very traditional ways and we knew we wanted to activate the space differently. Whether hanging woven pieces high and then paper collages low, we are intentionally and thoughtfully curating the works by colour, technique and concurring themes.

Also in this duo display, we’re not concerned with labelling every piece with its maker and materials – we like the idea of just letting the viewer experience the work as a unified whole.

Did you have any previous experience that helped prepare you for working on a duo project?

Johanna: In graduate school, Amanda and I, along with another textile artist and two ceramic artists, collaborated on a show called Undermined. The collaboration involved the ceramic artists making work, primarily functional objects, but also more sculptural and figurative work, then the three textile artists set about undermining the functionality of the objects.

We bound plates together with thread, which included my knitted tubes that connected the cups to each other, and a web of screen printed silk organza created by Amanda. 

Undermined was my first experience of collaboration as a sort of call and response process. The Common Thread collaboration was similar, but the conversation was more of a repeated back and forth process, rather than a simple call and response.

Other group shows I’d been in were different, in that I was invited because my work was perceived as fitting into an already existing concept. The artworks in those shows were pieces I had already made and had not been created in such a conversational way.

The benefits of collaboration

Could you choose one particular favourite artwork and share how the collaborative process improved it?

Amanda: Carapace Capsules is one of my favourite collaborative pieces in the show. The piece is small in scale but allows for an intimacy with the work.

Both Johanna and I are very interested in the concept of the archive: questioning what is collected and what memories are retained through these mementoes. These transparent boxes and trays felt like precious time capsules that combine both of our unique perspectives. 

Johanna: Possibly my favourite collaboration of the exhibit relates to how we installed our work together, and how we viewed our work in relation to each other’s art. 

We decided to install Amanda’s work Hereditary Smoker Series, a pair of plexi-trapped textiles and digitally printed vellum, next to my work Sapelo Dreams: Asleep in a Live Oak, a long clasp-woven cloth and a pair of woven collages I made from weavings on hand-painted warps.

I would never have installed these collages on their own in this way, higher and lower than usual. But it was all about the interaction of the work – we invited the viewer to see my work through Amanda’s work, which was mounted on hinges perpendicular to the wall. 

Amanda’s work was about her grandmother, and my pieces were about my own family memories of places (Sapelo Island, a favourite family camping spot) and about our lives as a process of repair, piecing ourselves (back) together from a combination of inheritances and experiences.

I think both our works were elevated by their proximity and how they interacted with each other.

What were the main benefits of collaborating and would you do it again (with other artists or with each other)? 

Amanda: Since this experience, I’ve been more receptive to both working with others and using techniques, processes and mediums that I’m not as familiar with. For instance, I am in the beginning stages of a collaborative project with a local sculptor for an outdoor sculpture installation. Without this experience with Johanna, I wouldn’t have been as easily persuaded to join in on this opportunity. 

Johanna: I’d collaborate again, most definitely. And I’m thinking of including a collaboration project in my textiles course next semester. I’d love to give my students an opportunity to experience the impact of working with another artist and the effect it can have on the direction of their work.

Do you have any tips for readers wanting to set up their own collaborative project?

Johanna: My advice would be to begin with trust. I already knew and trusted Amanda. I knew that while our processes were not the same, that they were compatible. A collaboration could be successful with two artists who were previously strangers, but you can’t go into a collaboration with a fear of the other artist stealing your ideas or accusing you of stealing theirs.

‘If you begin with respect, trust, and a commitment to honour each other in the work that comes out of the collaboration, I think it will be a positive experience and it will result in elevating both artists’ work.’

Johanna Norry, Textile artist

Amanda and I have a show coming up in 2025 where the curator has paired us with another duo of textile artists who know each other, but we don’t know them or their processes, and I am hopeful it will be successful and an uplifting experience.

Amanda: Setting and sticking to a timeline would be my biggest tip – deadlines for a show or an upcoming application can help with the planning of your timeline. 

Also, it’s handy for both contributors to be working on a similar scale or technique. For example, Johanna and I both knew we wanted to create long narrow pieces to have as a visual mirroring effect.

When she suggested creating an eight foot woven assemblage Sometimes, It Just Fits, that allowed a direction for my nine foot collection display A Sea of Sinister Dots. These pieces were displayed across the gallery from each other, and I love the effect of the scale and central placement.

How has the collaboration affected your own art practice? 

Amanda: Before this experience, I would say I was closed off to the idea of collaboration.

I am very goal-oriented and independently motivated, however, this experience has allowed me to see how collaboration is important for growth – not only as a person but to allow one’s art to grow as well.

It is amazing to have a partner to bounce around ideas for colours, techniques and concepts with.

Johanna: I’ve always sought feedback. Whenever I make something, at the very least my husband gets called in to look at it, and I value his response.

But I’ve also felt possessive about what I’ve made – or perhaps protective is a better word. Like I had some sort of parental responsibility to defend my art, since I had made it.

I think the collaborative, sharing process – where things I’ve made have been incorporated into Amanda’s work, and things she’s made have gone into mine – has expanded my emotional attachment to my artworks. I feel more accepting of what they become once they’re made.

When Elisabeth Rutt goes outdoors, she looks up, around and down, finding all the texture, colour and form she needs to create a unique piece of art. Influenced by the landscape, the ever changing skies and weather, Elisabeth selects from her favourite textile techniques to interpret the shapes and linear patterns she sees.

She applies her individual stamp by developing her own fabrics – especially by dry felting with an embellisher – or by changing fabrics she already has. Elisabeth further manipulates her materials using weaving, melting, shaping, dyeing, printing and painting, before finishing with simple hand stitching, darning and beading. But her skill lies in her command of her materials – and it’s gratifying to see just how well they obey.

Fine art perspective

Elisabeth Rutt: I am an artist working with textiles, and my work comes from somewhere between my art school training and my lifelong love of textiles and stitch. I approach my work from a fine art perspective rather than being led by a technique.

As long as I can remember the ‘feel’ of cloth has always been important to me. I’ve never stopped loving that sensation and using it for my creative purposes.

Elisabeth Rutt, Textile artist

The driving forces in my work are form, colour and excellence of design, what I can make them do, and what they will do for me in return. I’ve attended many courses over the years to gather a repertoire of textile techniques, but have come to rest on hand stitching. I like to keep it simple, not doing anything too technically difficult or overtly impressive. I want the work and what I want it to say – not the technique – to be predominant. My stitches are drawn marks that record what I’ve observed or am thinking about, and work is usually, but not always, abstract. 

I move between design work and stitching throughout the development of a project, rather than finishing design work and moving on to fabric and thread. This helps me to keep a project alive and I can stay open to new ideas for as long as I want to keep the topic active.

Lifelong love of art

When I was asked as a child ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’, my response was always ‘I am going to be an artist’, which was usually shrugged off as childish fantasy.

My father was a professional artist and illustrator, so I was fortunate to see what this meant as a way of life and I had few illusions. The elderly lady who lived next door taught me to sew from a very early age and I grew up drawing, painting and sewing every minute I could, doing each with equal importance and obsession.

After school, and taking as many art and textile related exams the curriculum would allow, I went on to complete a Bachelor of Humanities honours degree in Art and Dance at Goldsmiths College, University of London. During this study, I continued stitching for relaxation and I also sneaked stitch into my fine art course work as often as I could.

While my two sons were young, I studied for a City and Guilds Embroidery parts 1 and 2. The old syllabus had proper exams in technique, history and a three hour timed design paper… good times! I achieved distinction and highly commended in the medal of excellence scheme. 

I was also a member of the Embroiderers’ Guild and was able to do every workshop they held on Saturdays while my husband babysat. The Guild gave me the opportunity to learn from some of the most renowned textile artists and tutors at the time, for which I’ll always be grateful.

Since then I’ve worked as an interior designer, as a mentor for a textiles masterclass in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, and as a manager for Smiths Row art gallery in Bury St Edmunds.

My sons are now grown men and I work freelance from my studio at home. I make work for exhibitions, commissions and I run a tutor textile and design workshop at West Suffolk College, Bury St Edmunds, and others by invitation.

Inspiration all around

For the last few years I’ve worked with landscape, skies, patterns and the weather. They are all around me and I can’t escape them!

I’ve been focusing particularly on the patterns of our British landscape, including those of the underlying chalk and how it’s influenced the landscapes that I’ve lived in all my life. The white eroded patterns and lines of pathways, the tractor tracks, ancient buildings and earthworks, and the meanderings of chalk streams across the land has led me to make work about geology, landforms, and the many layers of underlying patterns in the land. I’ve used hand stitch and surface darning on my own dry felted fabrics, with screen printing and a small number of old paper maps to create my own ‘mind’s eye’ textile landscapes.

I’ve moved my work on by looking up at the broad East Anglian skies, making work about the sky, our weather and the colour palettes I see in different weather phenomena. I have called this body of work the Weather series. Constructed ground fabrics and hand darning still feature, but my design emphasis has developed. In this work I’ve been interested in observing, and recording in darned swatches, the colour schemes of different weather phenomena.

Continuing my interest in the weather I’ve also been working intermittently with snow as a starting point for new work. I’ve used beading, with my usual hand stitching, felting, and darning, in this continuing project.

I work within a body of work for a long time and am very concerned about making work in series. I consciously try to take an element from one series of work into the next. This gives me continuity whilst progressing and developing myself, my skills and my work.

Sketching preparation

The ideas and inspirations that inform my work are very varied. Once I have an idea, I research my subject thoroughly by reading, observing, making visits and using sketchbooks. I may work from detailed drawings and research, or use a piece of particular fabric or thread as an initial starting point. 

I try to draw in ways that will easily move into fabric and thread, often stitching directly into the paper pages alongside other media. Sometimes I stitch into a drawing or sketch, but I also stitch into blank sketchbook pages. When I stitch in this way, I have the same thought process as when I draw with pencil or pens.

Having sampled with drawing media and threads in a sketchbook I move to my fabric, which I’ve usually ‘made’ or changed in some way to make it truly my own before adding stitches.

Manipulating materials

I use very ordinary materials, always feeling a bit sceptical about the latest and newest big thing. I use a variety of fabrics, usually in small pieces that I combine to make a larger piece of cloth to work on.

I’m led by what I see, and I allow the work to grow and gain the right visual vocabulary.

Elisabeth Rutt, Textile artist

I work with materials that I’ve woven, melted, shaped, dyed, printed or painted. I rarely use commercial fabrics and am increasingly using my embellisher to make my own original dry felt, to use as my ground fabric for hand stitching; it’s rare that I use my sewing machine for embroidery. I enjoy chance and asymmetry, with a nod to geometry. The more I sew the more I want to simplify the construction of the stitches I use, although areas are often densely stitched.

My favourite thread is cotton perlé, numbers 8 and 12, but I do use other similar threads from my long years of collecting materials. Most have long lost their labels and so I’m no longer sure what they are. Some fabrics and threads are ones I’ve previously dyed myself.

I’ve tried very hard, over the last 10 years or so, to not buy anything new. Like most people who sew, I have an enormous stash of fabrics, threads, beads and haberdashery. I like to use second-hand garment fabrics whenever I can.

Meeting time challenges

My biggest challenge has been finding the time to make work. Anyone who hand stitches knows the enormous amount of time it takes. When my sons were a bit older and at school, however little time I could find to stitch, I always called it ‘mummy’s work’ and never approached what I was doing as a hobby. I think this helped them and me to take what I was doing seriously, and they were always respectful of the time I needed to work and of the artworks I made.

Magnum opus

The piece I would consider my magnum opus to date is Land Cloth from my Landmarks series. Before I began making, I decided that this piece would be designed to lie horizontally, just as a cloth would lie on a table, but raised a little higher so that it doesn’t look like a piece of domestic linen. I wanted it to be viewed as landscape features lie over the earth’s surface rather than hung on a wall in a vertical plane.

I became completely immersed in it, as it took about a year to complete. It’s not quite the biggest thing I’ve ever worked on, but there was certainly the most ‘making’ involved. I made the fabric first with dry felting techniques before I stitched anything, and then felted back into it in a limited way as I stitched.

It felt like a trip through the landscape – through my ‘journey’ making felted cloth I created the different colours and land features I wanted to represent.

Elisabeth Rutt, Textile artist

It was exhibited at the Knitting and Stitching Show but, due to its size and being made to be seen horizontally as the land lies, it proved tricky to exhibit elsewhere. It remains with me safely rolled up, but I do share it occasionally if I’m teaching or talking to students on a relevant topic.

A topical diversion

I have a second favourite piece – ‘significant to me’ would be a better way to think of it.

In 2020 I made a piece of work about the impact of coronavirus that was exhibited in the Chaiya Art Awards online exhibition Impact. I called this piece inhale/exhale. It was a one-off piece, a disruption to my then-current body of work. In a small way it was similar to the interruption and pausing of the world brought about by the pandemic. This piece completely absorbed me for a few weeks. It felt appropriate to spend time doing something different before returning to my current work.

I had pangs of guilt in creating this piece, making something to be aesthetically pleasing out of such a terrible world event seemed wrong in some ways, but as I stitched it helped me think through the issues we all had to confront.

Elisabeth Rutt, Textile artist

The artwork focuses on the breath of individuals and the world at that time, about the microscopic virus and the enormous effect it had on the planet. I darned motifs of the virus onto a piece of felt fabric I’d made but not used while I was suffering from whooping cough a few years earlier. It seemed somewhat ironic that it was made while I was struggling with my lungs and breath. I always knew it would come in useful for a piece of work at some time.

I used a circular format for inhale/exhale, which was a new approach for me. Stylised lungs appear within the blue circle, just as continents are seen on a satellite image of the earth. The bronchioles are reminiscent of roots, rivers, roads and communication networks, with the stitched pale patterns in the lungs indicating the presence of Covid-19. I wanted to include some of the new vocabulary that we all became familiar with. The words have a deliberate light touch, giving a corona of colour with a nod to the appearance of infographics in the data we were being presented with. 

The work was exhibited and sold during The Broderers’ Exhibition at Bankside Gallery, London in 2022.

Books to inspire

For inspiration, I think any textile artist would benefit by reading anything by Constance Howard or Kathleen Whyte, also Machine Stitch and Hand Stitch, both by Alice Kettle and Jane McKeating.

It’s also worth looking at Uppercase magazine, an independently published Canadian magazine about all things design, colour, and illustration. It’s a joy to read and look at, and, miraculously, is the work of Janine Vangool alone, who is the owner, editor, designer and publisher. It’s published every three months and although not a dedicated textile magazine, I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in any area of the arts and crafts – it’s a visual feast.

A recognisable style

I’d advise any aspiring textile artist to focus on developing work that will set you apart and give you a recognisable style. Instead of asking ‘How have they done that?’, ask ‘Why and what have they done in that piece of work?’. I would advise looking at and soaking up design in many other disciplines. Good design is the core of successful work, whether it is furniture, architecture or jewellery. 

I would also recommend finding a group of peer artists to bounce ideas off of and critique each other’s work. Such a group gives great support and you will learn much from each other.

Plus, go to as many exhibitions as you can get to… (sadly I don’t get to enough!).