statement

My work is deeply rooted in a sense of place. My original training as a geographer sparked a lifelong fascination with landscape and although I have worked in and travelled to far-flung destinations, it is those places closer to home that continue to capture my imagination. I am drawn to the wild bare lands of Britain 's Celtic Fringe; to Orkney, Shetland, Wales and in particular to Skomer Island in Pembrokeshire. Barren, exposed and thinly populated, these are places ‘on the edge'. They are places of vast skies and limitless horizons where the shifting light constantly transforms the landscape. There are traces of an ancient past; standing stones, chambered cairns, Neolithic villages and passage graves litter the landscape.

I make abstract work inspired by landscape and light. I use a variety of fibres such as wool, silk and flax to produce fine, almost transparent, felt. I stitch into this fabric by hand, adding fragments of photographs, dyed cords and silver or copper wire. This is time consuming but very satisfying! I also make 'talisman' pieces for which I use found objects scavenged on walks in Orkney, Shetland and Skomer - fossils, bones, weathered glass and shells are all worked with dyes, covered with metal foils or bound with threads and combined with other elements made with fabric and stitch. I respond to the archaeology of the islands by incorporating prehistoric inscriptions, runes and symbols in the work.