Project Description
ABOUT
I studied in the Painting School at the Royal College of Art 1959-64 & was elected a member of the London Group in 1965. My early paintings were in earth colours of rooms, passages & staircases sometimes with a figure sitting in an armchair or on a sofa. By 1970 they were black & white & grey of empty rooms, passages & tunnels. From 1976-80 they were landscapes of Dorset in greens & blues.
I began spinning & weaving in 1976 as the stair carpet was wearing out. I spin all my own wool on a spinning wheel that my brother made me, a bobbin screwed on a treadle sewing machine base. My fleeces come mainly from friends who live on the Berkshire Downs & the Chilterns & have flocks of different breeds of British sheep: Shetlands (fine/brown, grey, black), Manx Logthans (soft/brown), Hebrideans (black) & Herdwicks (coarse/grey), Beatrice Potter’s sheep from the Lake District.
“At first glance the rugs might seem understated and unassuming, looking to rest quietly in the everyday domestic realm. But here is an artist being liberated by the perceived constraints in the medium of warp and weft- of patient repetition and meditation. The languages of textiles have their own deep, global, historical roots and practical purposes that go way beyond the purely aesthetic. These rugs are composed of stunning reductive geometric patterns, subtle colour contrasts and consistent rhythmic beauty. They are testimony to the eye of an artist at work, masterfully weaving the ancient with the modern.” – J. Bunker
The rugs have been displayed in Liberty, London; the Queens Art Centre, Hexham, Northumberland; Origin , Somerset House and Spitalfields Old Market; Odells, Shoreditch; the Cello Factory, Waterloo and the Pullens Open Studios, Elephant and Castle.