Issues of gender stereotyping, globalisation, and branding are explored in my practice. Techniques used vary, but often include the use of industrial embroidery technology, whether relatively archaic, such as the pantograph schiffli machine, or up-to-date, such as the computerised embroidery machine. Attendance at an inspirational series of paper cutting workshops organised by Dr Tongyu Zhou and led by Professor Lu Shengzhong in 2010 led to the creation of a radically different body of work incorporating papercuts. Collaborating with Jenny Walker, jewellery designer, in the Pairings project at MMU also had a profound effect on my practice.

PROCESSIONS 14-18 NOW

To commemorate the one hundred year anniversary of (some) women in the UK getting the vote, Artichoke/14-18 Now organised a mass-participation artwork on 10th June 2018, with processions of thousands of women carrying banners in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast.
I was selected by Mostyn Art Gallery in Llandudno and CALL (Culture Action Llandudno) to be their lead artist.
 
Dal Ati/Keep Goingwas made by a group of 24 women and girls aged from seven to mid-seventies over three day-long sessions. The banner includes an archive image from the Museum of London, of Welsh participants in the 1911 Coronation Procession. The image has been recreated outside Mostyn gallery with some of the workshop participants; this new image also forms part of the banner.
 
The Mostyn Art Gallery is believed to be the world’s first purpose-built art gallery for female artists. Local landowner Lady Augusta Mostyn funded its construction in 1900 for the public to view works by members of the Gwynedd Ladies’ Arts Society. Their gender barred them from membership of the Royal Cambrian Academy.
 
The other main component of the banner is stitched portraits of notable women from North Wales. Some of these were inspired by CALL artist Lindsey Colbourne's Llandudno through the stories of women https://mapllandudno.org/hanes-llanddynes. Others were selected by the group, such as local suffragists Charlotte Price-White, Mildred Spencer and Laura McLaren; and the late Val Feld, Labour politician and equalities campaigner - her sister stitched the portrait.

COSTUME TRANSLATIONS/ SCISSORS - PAPER - DOLLS

This three/four-part work consists of representations and interpretations of indigenous costume in different media: postcards, costume dolls, embroidery and paper cuts. In the past, local textile production and climate influenced clothing types. Today, with globalisation, the wearing of ethnic costume is less prevalent. The work also highlights the interpretations of  ‘traditional’ costume.  One version is found on picture postcards, sold to tourists, representing a version of local costume. Costume dolls provide another version of ‘national’ costume, constructed with varying degrees of authenticity. 

The work was originally created for The Power of Copying at Xuzhou Art Gallery in China, 2010, curated by Tongyu Zhou. Another version was developed for The Function of Folk at Krakow Ethnographic Museum in 2012.

MECHANICAL DRAWING: 
COSTUME NATION; JEANS, BASEBALL CAP, SWEATSHIRT; JEANS, BASEBALL CAP, SWEATSHIRT’ 

I find the technology of embroidery mass-production fascinating. There is something almost hypnotic watching the same image being created over and over. I am motivated by a desire to create work that is not one-off, but could be mass-produced. There are two main ways of mass-producing machine embroidery: the computerised multi-head, which tends to be used for embroidering directly onto garments; and the multi-needle schiffli machine, which is used to create ‘all-overs’. 

Jeans, baseball cap, sweatshirt; jeans, baseball cap, sweatshirt reflects the transition of production from local to global, from hand-made to mass-produced.It takes a series of traditional folk costumes, re-presented as line drawings of costume dolls, and repeats them mechanistically. Overlaid on top of the images are repeated words denoting items of clothing: some of them indigenous to particular geographical locations, others more ubiquitous. In the past, climate and local textile production influenced clothing worn. Today, with globalisation, the wearing of ethnic costume is less prevalent, replaced in many communities by the ubiquitous jeans, baseball cap and sweatshirt. The same branded garments are on sale all around the world, global brands can be purchased almost anywhere, leading to drab uniformity. Regional costume, in contrast, varied minutely depending on the particular location, and local textile techniques and materials would have been utilised in the making of garments. 

PAIRINGS 2010 - 2011

This was a collaborative project initiated by Alice Kettle, Alex McErlain and Stephanie Boydell at Manchester Metropolitan University: 32 disparate makers from various backgrounds in craft, art and design formed 18 cross-disciplinary partnerships to make new work. 

The exhibition aimed to display and interpret the processes and document the ‘conversations’ as well as the finished outcomes, questioning notions of creative identity and ownership. 

I worked with Jenny Walker, a jeweller. Starting points for our joint work included textile heritage, commemorative badges and medals, the collections ‘behind the scenes’ at Platt Hall Gallery of English Costume in Manchester, and a fascination with the making process. 

We created a range of medals and brooches, however for both of us the collaboration was about far more than the physical making experience and the material outcome. The most important part of the pairing was the journey, the conversations, the insights into different practices and disciplines.

TOYS FOR BOYS; BELINDA THE IDEAL GIRL; JENA – TODAY’S GIRL; REENIE THE IDEAL WOMAN; BABY DOLL

These works questioned conventional sterotypes, ranging from accepted norms of beauty and taste, to gender conditioning. The function of the fabrics was deliberately ambiguous: they could be seen as ‘merely’ decorative, but had an underlying seriousness.

The imagery and wording on Jena – Today’s Girl, Reenie the ideal woman, and Baby Doll were derived from an investigation into children’s toys. The fabrics were intended as parodies of sexual stereotyping. Commercially, in the West, there is an alarming preponderance of sexualised toys and clothing directed at young girls. These pieces were made in the early 1990s – the latest generation of ‘Bratz’ dolls take this to new extremes with scanty clothes and excessive make-up.