Since graduating from University over 10 years ago (eek!) I have worked hard on building my skills as a community artist working with Pyramid and other great art organisations in Leeds. I love what I do, but over the last few years or so I have found myself wanting to step back and put aside more time to develop my artistic practice. When Pyramid announced the 16% for Art scheme this spurred me on even more to start focusing on embedding more creative habits of making into my everyday life.
I am textile based, mixed media artist and I work a lot with embroidery, patchwork & print making. Because I often use fabrics as the backbone of my art I decided to use the 16% for Art scheme to fund a selection of fabric dyeing workshops. My hope is that these new textiles based skills will add an extra layer of narrative to my art work!
The first workshop I attended was a two day Rust Dyeing workshop hosted by one of my favourite artists, Alice Fox at the lovely Craft House in Bingley. Over the course of the workshop we learnt about the potential for using rusty objects for printing and dyeing on paper and fabric. Using found rusty items we produced a series of unique prints and marks, inspiring us to the discover the possibilities of a range of metal objects!
The second workshop was at the Leeds Print Workshop, hosted by Kirsty Williams. On this one day course we explored a range of natural dyes such as onion skins, tumeric and madder. We also experimented with the use of mordants to help create a range of different colour textile samples.
