I often wonder if each one of us views things slightly differently, and of course we do, we must.
My art is my personal response to the landscape around me, that I have visited and formed a connection with. I have learned over time that what truly inspires me is not just the observation of the landscape and its beauty, but being there and experiencing it with people I love; family, friends and my dogs. In this way each piece of my art represents not just an image of the landscape as I see it but a point in time that I have spent and therefore an emotional quality tied to that time.
Graduating from Glasgow School of Art in 1992, I worked firstly as a woven textile designer, then a designer of outdoor clothing. It was not until having my children and moving to the far north of Scotland, to Caithness, that I began to make art to show. Initially my landscapes were painted, but quickly I returned to my primary love of textiles and started to make mixed media stitched collage work for the wall.
The work is created through the collage of fabric and paper, then a layering of translucent fabric and machine stitch is added. It is then cut into to reveal earlier layers and is finally embellished with hand stitch.
Each piece is developed from line drawings of the landscape. The drawings are a key part to my work as they are my personal reaction to what I see where I try to capture the energy of place. These drawings are always in black and white, with line being the key element used to portray movement and depth. It’s this line element that comes through in the stitching of the final work, carrying the same ‘hand-writing’ as the original drawings. The final work is full of colour and pattern and, hopefully, my joy of the landscape it depicts.