Embroidery September - October 2022

Welcome to my second issue as editor. I couldn’t produce a magazine such as this without touching on the fact that talent comes in a multitude of guises. Recently, I was lucky enough to drop in on the exhibition of Grayson Perry’s six huge tapestries at Salisbury Cathedral. I would recommend a trip to see them in person; they are incredible. Their pop art colours and detailed, intricate, almost tangled depictions provide something of an explosion in the mind but, as you will read in my review on page 55, these monumental tapestries, first aired 10 years ago, derive much in interpretation from their monumental surroundings. Contrast that with the ethereal work of Sarah J Harper relating the long shadow of Covid-19, the jaunty and endearing floral mice of Bryony…

SABINE KANER GREW UP in London in the 1960s and 1970s in a mixed-race family; her mother German, her father Jamaican and of the Windrush generation. ‘Drawing, colouring, making stuff out of anything I could find’ was an essential element of her early life, and she went on to study at Saint Martin’s and the Central School of Art, London. Sabine is a mixed-media artist who provides insight into multi-cultural issues, drawing on her life experiences. Her current work explores social and political discourse through a form of abstract realism, using referential devices, symbols and visual vignettes to compose and frame hand-stitched stories. When the boat comes in, 2020, (pictured) synthesises these approaches, with recycled (repurposed) clothing, embroidery materials, stitch and paint. The Arts Council is supporting Sabine to develop…

PERHAPS TEXTILE ARTISTS are particularly well-placed to experiment with what many practitioners consider at some stage: developing a product line. Ailish Henderson was featured in Embroidery magazine in November/December 2020 and has recently launched a range of products. Her signature narrative artistic style lends itself well to cushions, lampshades and wallpaper. She has reproduced some of her most popular designs using sustainable methods from British companies. Pictured: Luxury silk satin and cotton velvet cushions (£95 40cm x 40cm) WWW.AILISHHENDERSON.COM SUNBURY EMBROIDERY GALLERY, nestled in Sunbury’s award-winning walled garden, has been granted planning consent for a major expansion. The new building will house the Diana Springall collection, amassed over 60 years and featuring early works of established names, in an archive/study centre, with a workshop area, and galleries for guest exhibitions.…

1 FLORA WITH FLEUR In November, Fibre Arts Take Two will offer one of the most beautiful and insightful embroidery classes you’ll find online. Filmed in stunning Nelson, New Zealand, you will gain behind-the-scenes access to Fleur Wood’s professional practice and signature techniques, while learning the art of joyful embroidery. Register to find out more: WWW.FIBREARTSTAKETWO.COM/COURSES/FLEURWOODS/ 2 AN ETHEREAL LIGHT If you’re fascinated by transparent fabrics and light, join Vinny Stapley to learn how to bond fabrics to create ethereal webs and delicate organdie textured grounds, upon which you will stitch your favourite natural forms. Vinny’s workshop has developed from her body of work, The Mersea Florilegium, inspired by the flora of the intertidal zone. 13 November 10am-4pm £89 (including materials kit worth £15) OLDBANKSTUDIOS.CO.UK 3 MEET MRS BERTIMUS Join…

Artist Jane Hall’s commute to work is an enviable one. There are two routes she can take. The short one takes her past a wildlife pond and then under a canopy of oak trees, the branches of which, at the height of their summer foliage, are beginning to obscure her studio. The longer one, which Hall takes when she’s ‘feeling jangled’, circumnavigates a meadow with sheep’s fescue and Yorkshire Fog grasses peppered with common purple-spotted orchids. Hall’s studio, a purpose-built, wooden structure, sits within ‘Madrigal’, the 2.5-acre property on the Wiltshire-Dorset border she and husband Neil bought in 2001 to restore and re-wild. Acutely alive to the wonder of their Arcadia, Hall tells of its detail lovingly. The mature silver birch that she can see from her window which is…

SERENA PARTRIDGE’S ART IS a small one, sometimes impossibly so. Looking back, Partridge thinks that this way of responding to the world originates in her forays entering local village contests as a child. Raised on a farm in Devon, and aided and abetted by their mother, Partridge and her sister would exhibit in all the neighbouring towns’ shows. ‘It was a bit of a hobby, really. I made a lot of miniature gardens.’ Remarkably for a child of nine, eschewing the usual, clunky childlike renditions, Partridge was not only displaying a careful dexterity but also an acute, almost intuitive sense of how to scale down. ‘We didn’t use anything like Lego or tin foil; our gardens were very much about using live foliage in soaked compost with miniature winding gravel…