In 2013, I was studying a Creative Arts degree at Bath Spa University. During the process, I became lost when trying to find the medium that really worked for me. On one occasion, it was suggested during a tutorial that I should find a different medium to drawing. At first, I felt deflated but realising that I that I loved to draw, I decided to return to my sewing machine, my childhood love, and started to make drawings that weren’t easily corrected – there were no preconceived ideas, I would just do what I loved.
‘We should smile more…’ was my first stitched drawing. It was my late husband’s camera and became and it was the first time that I had worked on dissolvable fabric. After completing the drawing, the backing was dissolved and to my horror, all the flaws showed. At first, I contemplated repairing the errors, but then I realised a sense of freedom – I could draw obsessively because, in the final stage, all control was lost and the work would take its own direction.
The drawing won the ‘Bristol Scholarship Award for Students’ at the Royal West of England Academy’s exhibition ‘Drawn’ in 2013.