Since an early age I have loved crafting, knitting, learning to sew and making my own clothes.
My most important influence has been my mother. My most enduring memory is of her sitting at her old fashioned Singer sewing machine and making clothes for my sisters and me.
My mother was Dutch and had to go through the occupation of the Netherlands between 1940 and 1945 as a young woman in her twenties during the Second World War. She wrote about this experience. I have extracted what she wrote regarding the dire situation that the Dutch people lived through at that time with particular reference to clothing. For me it shows how inventive and creative people like her were through necessity.
‘When the Germans invaded the Netherlands, our first thoughts were to lay in a stock of food. We did not think much about clothes but it soon became clear that clothes would disappear as well as food. First we got coupons, then items began to vanish. Fortunately, I had got a new (wonderful) winter coat in December ’39, so that lasted me right through the war. But we must not forget one thing: there was no nylon or courtelle or anything like that. So clothes did not last very long. That woollen coat was absolutely threadbare after 5 or 6 winters and so was everything else. My favourite dress sprang holes under the arms in ’44 where the sleeve rubbed against the bodice. One just had to make do and repair and be cunning.
People cut up all sorts of things just to get a new blouse or skirt: tablecloths, an old, thin curtain, old forgotten clothes found in the attic. I made a summer dress out of a sort of duvet cover – very coarse cotton in a grey and white stripe and a silk embroidered stole of my mother’s became a new blouse.
Shoes were very much more desperate. In ’44 I bought a pair of wooden soles. I cut up a suede beret and nailed strips to the soles with brass furniture tacks.
Eventually, I began to dye things. Old sheets and clothing. I also unpicked knitted tops and put the wool into the dye vat. My best jacket was: the back of Pa’s dinner jacket and the front panels of my mother’s old fur coats; knitted sleeves – pink wool dyed dark grey!’
As a girl I drank in these stories and they became part of our family narrative. When I left university I worked in the textile industry running libraries of fabric swatches as a resource for designers in the clothing and fashion industry. Then I had children and when they were of school going age, I started to do a few courses, at first to do with sewing and patchwork quilting. I was all set to do a creative textile course at that time which sounded very exciting but it folded due to lack of numbers. I ended up doing an art foundation course which was followed by many years of drawing and painting in a studio in London. The lure of textiles never really left me and I began to be aware of the textile courses offered by City Lit in Holborn, London. Eventually I enrolled on the Textile day course at City Lit in 2013 and continued doing a number of courses there until I was accepted onto the Advanced Textile course in 2018.
This course gave me the chance and space to explore many different ways of using textiles as another medium for making art. I was drawn towards making 3D work. Without thinking about it, I must have been influenced in my thought processes by the dressmaking I had done before. Clothes, after all, are 3D structures.
I am drawn to airy structures which may look fragile but are inherently strong. I enjoy using machine embroidery on soluble fabric which, once the soluble material is washed away, leaves a small amount of sticky residue; the remaining embroidery can then be manipulated into shapes by placing them over forms to dry. I also enjoy using silk fibres which can be laid down and glued to make a material. Again, this can be formed into 3D shapes before the glue dries in order to preserve the form. I like creating a palette of materials without any preconceived plan which I can then manipulate into other pieces of work. I have always loved collage and have prepared many papers by painting them up entirely freehand making marks and choosing colours instinctively. I see it as a loosening up exercise which breaks down the fear of the blank sheet/canvas/ initial idea. The pleasure for me is then to start to refine down what I have and to make choices for whatever piece of work I have in mind.
I take a great deal of pleasure in using colour in my work. Colour rewards the pleasure centres in my brain.
I am very interested in exploring the use of paper, strengthening it, painting it, moulding it and building with it. I am also exploring making 3D images in wire which relate to my drawings and collages.
I have come back to my drawing and painting experiences. This is what I find exciting. For me, Art Textiles are not just about using cloth. There are such a lot of possibilities in mixed media art which I find exciting.
I have no idea what my next piece work will look like. I don’t really want to know as that might hamper me and put me in a rigid box of expectation. I like to take an idea, however small and start to experiment. One thing will most certainly lead to another as our tutors told us at City Lit!
Exhibitions
Worn, textiles2020, Espacio Gallery, London, October 2023
Fishy Tales (a collaborative project), Festival of Quilts, NEC Birmingham, August 2023
Piece by Piece, CityLit, February 2023
Stories in Stich, textiles2020. Espacio Gallery, London, April 2022
textiles2020: the show, Espacio Gallery, London, December 2020
Sewn Antidote. Contributed to a collaborative textile artwork on reflections to the first lockdown of the COVID pandemic conceived and stitched together by Lara Hailey. Accepted as part of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s textile collection 2020
In Transition Group Show at Citylit March 2020
Construction Site Group show at Citylit July 2019
Instagram @ceridwensookecrazyaboutcolour