Projects

THIS hand

‘This Hand’ was a project run by the local ‘Lakes Alive’ festival to celebrate 100 years of women’s suffrage. Participants were asked to make a glove to represent a local woman who had contributed to society in some way. I chose to represent Lancaster born Emily Williamson who founded ‘The Plumage League’ which went on to become the RSPB. The glove was purchased second hand, deconstructed, and then inscribed using free machine embroidery. The embroidery records some of the species that were driven close to extinction by the plumage trade. This was displayed as part of the final exhibition in Kendal Townhall in 2018.

Processions

Processions was a participatory art work produced by ‘Artichoke’ as part of the nationwide celebration of women’s suffrage. I was fortunate enough to take part in the construction of one of the Kendal banners. My contribution (below right) was ‘Aspire’. The woman’s features were made using free machine embroidery on felt and are formed from words listing jobs titles for traditionally male roles to which women often do not aspire e.g. plumber, architect, fisherman etc.

Flax

Through a project run by Heron Corn Mill I was introduced to flax production and caught the bug. There are many different processes to go through in order to achieve this simple piece of string. The flax shown was grown on my allotment, processed and spun by hand using methods that would be familiar to people in the UK in Neolithic times.