From workshop to R&D

Creating connection… In Spring 2020, in the first coronavirus lockdown, I ran a workshop for East End WI, using plant drawing to connect women who drew with women who embroidered. Fashion-focused growing and making project Cordwainers Dye picked it up on Instagram and asked if they could embroider a piece. … Read More

STEAM and steam

From invention to creativity… My practice runs on curiosity. I work with some fascinating science clients and project partners and some of them have been involved in the SunSpaceArt STEAM festival (science, technology, engineering, art and maths) so I’ve dropped in to talks during the day. But when I think … Read More

2020: 20:20

Weird year: new insights…  Well, 2020… over here, the entire pattern of studio life was thrown into disarray. But I was brought up by parents who had to adapt countless times, decades before pivoting was a thing. So in the silence of the first lockdown, I started rearranging things. New … Read More

A Great East End sketchwalk

A flâneuse with a sketchbook… I am never without a sketchbook. Most walks turn into sketchwalks as I spot interesting stories or places on my way. So signing up for the St Joseph’s Hospice Great East End Walk, I hand-bound a sketchbook, filled it with the walk’s landmarks and a … Read More

Reservoirs of knowledge

The value of wandering… All of my creative practice is driven by a curious mind. So every trip, every meeting, every errand presents opportunities to learn and explore along the way, whether on travels as a pre-Covid flâneuse or now, locally. Marvellously-useful though online research is, I know what I’m … Read More

120 and counting

Why personal projects matter…  I’m a big fan of making my own work as well as work for clients. Why? Well, think of it as an R&D playground. At the start of the London lockdown, working from home, I decided to report from my garden in place of my daily … Read More

Waste not

Considerate products – and processes…  Ever since I was a child, I’ve loved making one thing from another. Then, my family knew to hang on to packaging for me and save waste materials. Now – well, this is a sketchbook I bound from a production dummy and some samples. Waste … Read More

The dance of distance

Social-distancing in London, we find ourselves in an elaborate dance of avoidance. We zigzag along roads, weave our way through parks and add courtly pauses to let others pass. As supermarkets, parks departments and local authorities try to choreograph the general public, the evolving visual language reminds me of old dance … Read More

Home work

We’re seeing a lot more of each other’s interiors these days. So though I’ve found out how to blue-screen my background for Zoom workshops, I decided that the pictures in my studio at home should be more – well – expressive. And curating this set has been surprisingly illuminating. Clockwise from … Read More

Where’s Ethel?

Type. On a comedy stage… I’ve been talking about lost letters from the English alphabet at Nerd Nite London, a monthly night of short talks for charity at the Backyard Comedy Club in East London. It’s been my third Nerd (more about the other two here), an opportunity to research … Read More

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