Embroidery today is celebrated, practised and appreciated by people from all different backgrounds and walks of life, and its value as a connecting thread is finally being recognised. Putting this book together has provided me with an opportunity to re-examine an extensive body of work.
Connecting Threads describes my life in stitch
My book (Jan 2025) details how an artist-embroiderer works and thinks creatively, how projects are managed and take shape and some of the hurdles encountered in socially engaged practice. The projects described encompass themes of identity and belonging, health and well-being, sustainability, community cohesion and social inequality, offering sensory testaments of life today.
Connecting Threads brings together twelve textile projects completed between 1981 and 2024. Each one acts as a social history document, providing tactile evidence of often untold stories of people on the margins, unexamined histories and overlooked places, all through stitch.
“Stitches are a means to an end in needlework, not an end in themselves. They are the words of our needle language, without them we cannot speak”
Gladys Windsor Fry – Embroidery and Needlework, 1035:3