This body of work explores deep loss and grief in relation to time spent in a community garden. I was immediately drawn to the decaying sunflowers and returned after everybody had gone to take some pinhole images of them. I wanted the garden to make its own mark on the images, to influence the work. I collected fallen plant materials from around the sunflowers, and boiled this up to create a plant based developer. I used a pinhole camera which is also a mini darkroom to take the photographs and then develop them using the plant developer in situ. Spending this time in the garden, absorbed in making, using natural materials to make the work was all part of this process.
HEALING/SOFTEN
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Healing/Soften is a place-based project about my mental health recovery from burnout during the pandemic and beyond. It is a personal project which explores processing grief, anxiety and loss. This project aims to allow me to start to feel things properly and soften again now that we are in a time of relative safety.
I make natural inks from foraged materials and also work with plant based analogue photographic techniques to create work for this project. I am using some of the therapy techniques I have learnt to make large mixed media artwork using the ink I have made. I use a therapy technique called ‘Bilateral Drawing’ in ‘Move Triptych’, which uses both hands and engages both hemispheres of the brain, which can be useful in regulating the nervous system and processing trauma.
The place where I make my work has become a crucial part of the making itself. The place informs and becomes part of the artwork. Post-pandemic, I am spending much more time outdoors in interesting places, and the places then also become part of my healing journey.
As an art therapist, I have an instinctive interest in connections, and how people benefit and impact each other. Through my practice as an artist, I have come to see how these instincts can also be applied to humans' relationship with the world around them. My understanding of the scientific aspects of my work has led to a greater awareness of the environmental impact of art making and drawn me to ways in which I can work with more sensitivity for nature and the world around me, for myself and for future generations.
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‘Move Triptych’
2023
Homemade daffodil, oak gall, and wood ash ink, charcoal, gold embroidery thread on cotton
Move is a part of a series of movement based artworks where I use a therapeutic technique called ‘Bilateral Drawing’. Bilateral Drawing uses both hands to create repetitive movements. This engages both hemispheres of the brain and can help to regulate the nervous system and process trauma. Different movements create different responses, some activate and some regulate.
The ink is made from foraged materials from different places. Each place then makes it’s own mark on the artwork. Ink making is a slow process in comparison to the fast movements of the Bilateral Drawing.
By using plant materials for this project, I am spending so much more time in the places I am making work in, rather than in the studio. I am taking time to fully connect with a place and getting to know it before I make work there.
I use Bilateral Drawing with certain clients in my Art Psychotherapy practice and have found that when I use this technique in my personal work I become completely absorbed in making. I feel calmer and clearer after making a piece.
This project is bringing me back to myself in many different ways and helping me to soften again.
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Ferns, Yorkshire Moors, UK
2023
Analogue photograph developed with plant material, print on paper, gold leaf
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Fan Palm, Los Angeles, USA
2023
Analogue photograph developed with plant material, print on paper, gold leaf
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Heather, Yorkshire, UK
2023
Analogue photograph developed with plant material, print on paper, gold leaf.
Heather is part of a series of photographs made in situ using experimental analogue techniques.
Plant materials that are photographed are then foraged and boiled up to make a photographic soup which the negatives are then developed in. In this way, the place makes it’s mark on the images that are made, the contrast, the tones are all influenced by the subject of the image.
This process takes time and ensures that I am able to connect with the place I am working in. It is a slow process in contrast to digital photography and allows the artwork to emerge organically over time.
Gold is a theme that runs through all of my artwork:
My work often explores challenges but as with life, there are always moments of joy alongside these things. I use gold in all of my pieces to represent the multitude of emotions that we feel at any given time and to remind myself that there is always joy to be found, even at the darkest of times.
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Processed Film using Oak leaf developer - North Wales
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Oak leaf Film Developer
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Foraged fallen Oak leaves and the Oak Tree
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Acorn Cap Ink
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Dartmoor Bracken Tor Residency Images
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Grinding charcoal from the fire at Bracken Tor to make Vine Black Ink
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Vine Black Ink made from Bracken Tor Charcoal and made on site
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I am making artwork on site from foraged materials. Making work from and in nature is important to me, as I have always been interested in how our surroundings affect wellbeing. This project encourages me to get out into the world and look closely at what is around me. It is a deliberately slow process.
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Bilateral Drawing on cotton, made on site with residency ink
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Bracken Tor Charcoal Ink, painted with bilateral movement onto a printing plate. Dried and then printed onto cotton rag paper with a pasta machine printing press.
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One of the wonderful things that has already come from this project is that each place reveals a completely different world when we look closely enough.
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Looking closely at Lichen on residency on Dartmoor
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The project is a series of large scale works on textiles, as well as smaller pieces on cotton rag paper, and photographs.
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2 YEARS ON
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2 Years On
Ink, Acrylic, Fabric Paint, Cotton, Gold Thread
150cm x 100cm
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This artwork was started on the 2 year anniversary of the UK going into lockdown. I painted the two ends of the fabric with the beginning and where we were on the 2 year anniversary, reflecting on the changes, losses, and experiences that shaped the 2 years. I lay the two ends of the painted cotton together, for the colours to seep into each other, the past affecting how we move in the present. When it was dry, I added gold paint and stitched it together with gold embroidery thread to wrinkle it, to create timelines through the piece, some neat and some scrunched and holding a lot. This piece was a cathartic release of some of the emotions I have been holding for the past 2 years.
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LIMITS
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This project is an exploration of the link between mental health and creativity.
We all have our own personal limits, and the pandemic has tested us all. But what happens when the boundaries that keep us safe and well are pushed? How much can we tolerate? This project explores this, and my personal experiences during the pandemic of both being a mental health professional, and also my own experiences of loss and grief during the pandemic.
The initial pieces were exhibited in a solo show in Bath in March, 2022 and the project will be continued throughout the year.
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Limits
Ink, Acrylic, Cotton, Gold Embroidery
107cm x 107cm
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Limits was made with a metal hoop laid onto a piece of cotton while the hoop was filled with acrylic paint. The hoop represents a vessel, an attempt to contain the multitude of daily tasks and emotions we are juggling. Ink and water were then slowly poured into the hoop. The ink finds paths through the paint, flows gently like a river. For a while, the hoop contains the ink; for a while we can sustain extreme pressure and stress. For a while.
And then it flows. The ink bursts the banks of the hoop and flows through onto the cotton, creating a cathartic sense of relief.
The ink creates something beautiful. Everything is OK.
The gold thread is then stitched onto the circle after the ink has dried. The slow embroidery stitching reflects the things that bring joy, the things that hold us together.
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It Comes in Waves
Ink, Acrylic, Linen, Gold Embroidery Thread
107cm x 107cm
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It Comes In Waves is a five-metre-long piece of hand painted linen connected to a smaller canvas which creates the folds in the fabric reminiscent of flowing waves. Because so much fabric is pushed together it creates a sense a of compression which represents the multitude of flowing emotions felt over the last two years. The push/pull motif is also visible in this piece, as well as the gold flecks representing hope and joy in a chaotic time.
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Bursting
Ink, Acrylic, Cotton, Wire warp, Metal hoop
70cm x 70cm
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Bursting is a continuation of a series of woven pieces started during the first lockdown. It is a weaving of hand painted recycled cotton, with wire as the weaving warp. The piece represents anxiety and movement, but also release. The use of wire is harsh but also stronger than the more traditional cotton warp it replaces.
Compared with traditional weaving, weaving with a wire warp requires more strength, and the large hoop requires full body movement. The process of making these pieces was a useful way to physically work through anxiety.
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DAILY REFLECTION 2021
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This project was born out of a reflection of 2020 and my coping strategies for the extended periods of isolation at home. I didn't have a regular check in with how I was on a daily basis, despite encouraging this for clients in my therapy practice and with family and friends. I decided to embark on a daily project of checking in with how I am on a particular day and finding an object in the confines of my home which connects with this feeling. I transfer this image onto rice paper, a reflection of the fragility of mental health in the pandemic. Every week, I stitch the pieces together to create a patchwork piece, documenting my days in lockdown in 2021.
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Day 6
Day 29
Day 17
Day 23
Day 22
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HOME IS
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An exploration of what home is and how the concept of home is shaped by immigration, discovering what this means in the modern world in relation to identity and loss.
I will embark upon a journey across Europe to explore my grandfather's Serbian heritage, using his memoirs to re-enact and document moments from his life.
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ISOLATION ARTWORK CONTINUED
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This artwork is a continuation of my isolation pieces in 2020. I have carried this forward into the lockdown in 2021 and the pieces come from feelings of separation, loss of connection, anxiety and also hope for what is yet to come.
I am strongly drawn to textile pieces when I am connecting with processing emotions through art making. The process of making is therapeutic.
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LEAP_58 cm wooden loom frame, wire warp, recycled textiles and hand dyed cotton
HANGING ON_50 cm diameter metal hoop, wire warp and dead stock scarves
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HOPE IN A PANDEMIC
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I put an open call out for submissions from the public asking ‘What does hope mean to you in 2020’? I wanted to explore the power of Hope in such challenging times and what it means to individuals. The sentences were submitted from all across the globe. I have been using a box of vintage travel postcards for the imagery to accompany the text, transferred onto rice paper. The text is also being used for a weaving for a Spring exhibition, which is below.
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70cm metal hoop, wrapped in cotton. Cotton warp and weft.
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HALF A CENTURY AWAY
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These pieces were made in response to an open call I connected with. The idea was to imagine yourself, half a century from now, in your studio making art. The art that still excites you well into your old age.
For me, this was imagining my two loves, photography and weaving and bringing them together. For this brief, I wanted to imagine a time in the future when I had found a way to comfortably combine the two processes, without wondering how they will be perceived by the outside world.
I went through my archive and found images which I then transferred onto lots of large pieces of rice paper. When dry, I tore these up into strips which I have used as the weft for these pieces.
I find joy in making art that takes up space. For this reason I have made each of these weavings on large 70cm diameter frames. They are bright and colourful from afar, and when you get closer you can see the detail of the clouds and flowers. I like to work on large frames when weaving as it becomes a whole body process of weaving the weft (in this case the transferred photograph weft) onto the frame. It becomes almost meditative.
I wanted to use images of things that I believe I will be eternally fond of. The first weaving is a combination of lots of blue skies and clouds from photos I have taken. The second is a combination of lots of different photographs of sunsets that I have taken over the last few years. And the last is a series of photographs of some stunning purple flowers. I imagine myself in my older age being just as mesmorised with each of these things and ever keen to preserve them through art making.
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Blue Skies_Photographic Transfer on rice paper, metal hoop_70cm diameter
Sunsets of the Years_Photographic transfer on rice paper, metal hoop_70cm diameter
Flowers, always_Photographic transfer on rice paper, metal hoop_70cm diameter
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ISOLATION ARTWORK
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All of this artwork was made during lockdown in the UK in 2020. It was a direct response to the feelings arising from the experience. I chose materials organically, based upon objects I already had in my home studio. None of the pieces were pre-planned. Some of the themes were connection, resilience and later, deeply personal loss. This artwork is a personal journal of experiences of life in isolation.
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‘Pandemic Anxiety’ 70 cm diameter metal hoop, wire warp, cotton and recycled wool.
'Connect/Disconnect' hand painted cotton on 130cm wooden dowel.
'Strong/Fragile' 70 cm x 50 cm wooden loom frame, wire warp, recycled textiles.
'Loss' 30 cm diameter metal hoop, cotton warp, recycled Harris Tweed wool ends.
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TRAVEL FROM HOME
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These images were made during 2020. I spent the majority of 2020 at home working from my home studio. These pieces originated from my desire to have new experiences at a time when these were scarce. I was drawn to my catalogues of images of previous travel. Working from home without a darkroom meant that I was able to work creatively to find new ways of manipulating images. They are home printed negatives, worked into with paint and ink. They represent the memories of past experiences and escapism that keeps the hope alive during extended periods of isolation.
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'Somewhere over the Great Barrier Reef' Photo painting.
'Somewhere in Australia' Photo painting.
'Somewhere on the Isle of Barra' Photo painting.
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KIND COMMISSIONS - SUBJECT MATTER ART
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Kind Commissions is a collaboration with Subject Matter Art to create commissions based upon a short questionnaire completed by the client. The following commissions were created on the theme of the love a grandmother has for her grandchildren who she cannot see during lockdown.
The colours and shapes are connected to the children and information provided about them. They are hand painted onto cotton and woven together. The aim of this collaboration is to create art which could bring a feeling of connection closer, at a time when this is not possible in person.
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30 cm metal hoop, hand painted cotton weft.
30 cm metal hoop, hand painted cotton weft.
Photo transfer weft on cotton warp, 30 cm dowels.
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