A question I am often asked about my textile work is “How long did that take to make?”. A common answer (depending on the piece) is “between a fortnight and ten years”. The work I was commissioned to make by the Scottish Maritime Museum (SMM) and their exhibition All Mortal Greatness is But Disease is […]
The Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther, Fife, is a delightful labyrinth of a place, located in a range of harbourfront buildings. Spending a long ‘Meet the Artist’ Weekend after the opening of my exhibition Arctic Ventures: forgotten stories of Scottish Whaling the most common comment from visitors arriving at the Whaling Gallery where the exhibition […]
I belong to the Artist’s Programme run by the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich. The group, run by the wonderful education department, encourages artists through a programme of workshops and regular meetings to consider issues around a range of practice related topics. Although I love the built environment of the displays there are […]
I’m just back from an amazing trip to Dundee for the installation and opening of my exhibition ‘The Arctic Whaling Year’ at the Verdant Works. The exhibition has been over a year in the making, but much, much longer in gestation. As I have been researching British Arctic Whaling I have pondered the idea of […]
This is one of the pieces in the Verdant Works Exhibition ‘The Arctic Whaling Year’, Autumn 2018. Many whaleships from English and Scottish mainland ports called into Orkney and Shetland to pick up further supplies and additional crew. The whaling agent Hay and Co in Lerwick, Shetland recruited local men, who were good sailors and […]
There are many places nearer to my home in Norfolk than Shetland that have material about Britain’s Arctic Whaling Heritage so why spend a month Shetland researching it? Well, I got to be artist in residence at Bressay Lighthouse for the whole month of July with a huge studio space to start to develop work […]
My practice, built around British Whaling and Moby Dick is rather niche. Generally I have to explain the whys and wherefore of the British whaling trade to people when I discuss my work. It’s been very different during my month in Shetland. The most common response to my describing my work to the locals has […]
In 2013 on my month long voyage around various Arctic Seas I saw five different species of whale and visited several whale centres, heritage whaling sites and museums with skeletons of whales on display. A series of quilted textile pieces evolved from sketches and photographs of the skeletons, maps both current and historic of the […]
Quilted textile with digital print and freehand machine embroidery (35 x 40 cm)
Quilted textile with digital print and freehand machine embroidery (25 x 35 cm)