Blog
Hello and welcome to my Blog especially for textile artists, combining inspiration, personal growth, creativity and design. All the good things!
Rigour & Adaptability
Rigour's defined as the quality of being extremely thorough and careful. It can also encapsulate severity and strictness or harsh and demanding conditions. And rigour can help define our textile and fibre art - I'm not into severity, strictness, harsh or demanding...
Concept and Process
But it’s that initial concept leading to process I find absolutely fascinating. How other artists work, most especially how they gather and work with that initial inspiration. It’s about trying to join those dots from inception through to the creation of a fully resolved artwork.
Making Magic
Let’s use our skill and ability to fabricate something captivating and irresistibly spellbinding.
Organising Images
One of my biggest bug-bears has to be how to organise all my images. And I have a lot! Throughout the concept, design and making process, I take numerous images to be used on social media. And they add up. For years, I've been dealing - or rather not dealing, with...
Sampling – Is It Still Relevant?
It’s not something I do often, I must admit, but when it comes to having to design and make something different from the norm, something that requires careful thought either in construction or technique, then I sample, sample, sample.
Photoshoot Your Work
Make your images resonate with your personality, and make them as beautiful as your work. I reckon it’s worth the effort.
Is It Better to Start or Finish?
Over the years a creative process has evolved that works for me. Led by passion, fuelled by inspiration, fleshed out by research and expanded through design development.
About Doubt
Rather than having misgivings about going down a certain path, entertain more paths. Rather than hesitating about trying new design elements – add more. Want to mix in more colours – or pare them down? Do it. But do it all with confidence – and that ‘what if’ attitude of success.
Begin at the End
It’s one thing to have an idea or concept – it’s another kettle of fish entirely, to make that up into a successful design for textile and fibre art. So where do I start?
The Success Icegerg
Well, my stars must be aligned or in their seventh heaven or whatever the terminology is as I've had an amazing news week. And while it's great to look at this as success, which of course it is, what it really is, is the realisation of a lot of hard work. I've had to...
Ideas = Exposure + Research
We all have ideas. When we're walking, in the shower, cooking dinner - all sorts of odd places, and all sorts of odd times. So, that big question 'where do your ideas come from?' is often at the forefront of any discussion on creativity in the textile and fibre arts...
Moments That Matter
Time can mean a point in time, a moment, a juncture or an hour. And that meaning can change slightly when referencing 'your time'. 'Your Time' is that special point when you've made the opportunity to be present and engaged in the work at hand, the work right in front...
Amour propre
Self-esteem, self-importance, self-worth or self-respect - call it what you will - it's ego. And believe it or not, we need it. But it's how we use it that's really important - not only to our sense of self as a person and an artist but also how we travel and...
Is It Working?
Now that's a very powerful question - with equally powerful ramifications. If I want to move forward in my work, I know there's a point in time when I have to step back and ask the question, 'is this working?' And, I ask that question with each piece of work I create...
WIP Images: The Benefits
By taking work-in-progress shots of your textile and fibre art, you’re promoting yourself and your brand, your style and even the genre you work in.