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I make beautiful photographic prints from my original 3D embroidered botanical sculptures.
I am working with my daughters, Rachel, a professional photographer, and Rebecca, a brand and website designer, to launch this new business. My girls are also skilled artists. We are working together to stage and photograph my embroidered flowers and make them into gorgeous, high quality giclee prints.
My original work is inspired by plants, gardens and their histories, antique botanical books, 17th and 18th century embroidery, plant meanings, and Dutch old masters floral paintings.
I have always loved plants, and as a child I found gardens to be fascinating and magical places.
I have also been captivated by 3D embroidery from the age of 6 when I found stump work boxes in a stately home on a visit with my mother. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t buy one of these beautiful boxes with my pocket money and take it home.
I think I have always been inspired to explore the world of stitch. My father worked in the textile industry in Lancashire and my mother’s family were all skilled needlewomen. However, I was 40 before I found the time and space to study textiles at degree level.
My degree gave me the opportunity to study methods of embroidery and design at a higher level, and establish a historical context for my future work.
In my final year, I studied antique botanical books and drawings at the RHS Lindley Library, as well as plant fibres and their many applications at the Economic Botany department at Kew Gardens. From these studies came a collection of interior hangings inspired by seedheads and botanical specimens. My work is even made from plants; the flax fibre paper I devised for these pieces is the material I still use today as a background for my work.
Since my degree my work has become more and more 3D. I soon returned to studying stump work in more detail and explored methods of making this using machine embroidery instead of the traditional hand stitch. I have worked on several high profile commissions and residencies and have work in private collections all over the world. My work has been featured in publications including Country Living magazine.
I became obsessed with Auricula plants after seeing them displayed on shelves called ‘theatres’.
Auriculas have a gorgeous shape and comes in a huge variety of named specimens. They have a long association in the UK with artists who grow these plants and use them as inspiration for artworks. It is said that Huguenot weavers from France brought Auricula seeds with them when they fled persecution and settled in the UK in the 17th century. At around the same time, Auriculas were collected by florist societies who exhibited and bred these beautiful plants, and still do so to this day.
Three dimensional pot plant sculptures
My passion grew, and I started to make Auriculas: first as framed pictures, and then as three-dimensional pot plant sculptures. These became instantly popular with my customers, who bought them in collections for themselves, and commissioned them as heirloom gifts for their loved ones. Following this success, I branched out into making other plants such as Tulips, Poppies, Passion Flowers, Anemones, and Peonies.
Since 2021, I have been making collections of embroidered pot plant sculptures and exhibiting them at the Chelsea Flower Show and at Bonadea, an exclusive home store in Belgravia, London. I am very excited to move this business forward into making beautiful photographic art prints of my work which will bring the beauty of the garden into your home.