I am delighted that textile artist Helen Parrott will be teaching in my studio this spring but wanted to know a little bit more about her work and the course she will be teaching ‘Northern Landscapes and Hand Stitch’. So I asked Helen a few questions and hope that you enjoy reading her answers. She also sent some lovely images of her recent work and inspirations - eye candy on a somewhat bleak, cold winters day here in Northern England.

Q. What is it about the landscape surrounding your home in northern England that inspires your work?

Helen: There is great beauty and interest in so much of what is around me on several levels:

I moved north over 40 years ago and still find the landscape fascinating and so different to where I grew up in Cambridge. Initially it was the urban landscapes of mills, factories, terraced houses and grand Victorian buildings in places like Leeds and Manchester that excited my curiosity. I spent years walking the cities of the north seeking to understand what I was seeing and how it came to be and look that way. I moved uphill to the edge of Sheffield in the 2000s and that is when more rural landscapes became part of my daily life. I still love to walk to town along the Porter Valley will its long unused millponds and traces of previous industry.

At this altitude the landscape is constantly changing, sometimes from moment to moment, sometimes boldly, at other times the changes are very subtle. The light is often unstable, fleeting and beautiful. (Taking daylight photos of my work can be a real challenge at some times of year because the light is so unstable.)

The landscape around here has a deep history of human occupation over millennia. The traces of these peoples and their lives are still visible in the landscape in the present day. I find that sense of continuity and connection with people over time a powerful one. These feelings of connection and continuity have been helpful to me as we live through the pandemic and the changes it has brought to our lives.

I love the wide valley vistas, the stone walls and the tiny details of the plants and trees. They all feed into my visual and creative life and work.

Q. How might running the course in a more urban setting influence the students experience?

Helen: I hope that the urban location will be thought provoking for all of us and that we can explore the idea of ’north’ as part of the course. We will each have our own experiences and ideas to share so I look forward to a lively conversation. I’d like students to go home with a clearer sense of what ‘north’ or ’northern landscape' means to them personally and why. For those that wish to take an exploration of north further my aim is to support that direction, including by recommending artists, images and writings to research.

Q. How will you combine the creative work that forms part of the course with providing one-to-one coaching/mentoring for the participants?

Helen: The way this usually works is that we spend the first day or so getting to grips with the theme, doing some collages and then working through some key hand stitch techniques. People love to get to the hand stitching! I then begin one to one conversations with students. Usually it works out that one or two people are very keen to talk early on, others prefer to wait a bit. I’d expect to have at least one coaching conversation of 20-30 minutes with each student on each of the two weekends. The actual length of each conversation varies, it depends a bit on the people, the size of the group and how the teaching and group discussion goes.

These are confidential conversations so we may sit in a quiet space or walk round the block, it depends on what people prefer (and the weather). I aim 'to meet people where they are' so conversations can be very broad, or very focussed, it depends. This is about supporting the student and their creative journey. Previous topics have included developing a portfolio of work to apply for a course, planning an exhibition or body of work, how to ‘make better work,' how to manage time, getting a studio and so on. I’ve been an artist, coach/mentor and arts manager/leader for over 20 years so have a wealth of experience to draw on.

Q. You have combined creative development with individual coaching time in workshops in the past, in your experience who might benefit most from this approach?

Helen: This is a good question - in my experience coaching can be really helpful when people can’t see the creative wood for the trees. It can help bring clarity and focus to art and creativity, support individuals to develop a plan and create ways forward for their creativity that suit their lives and circumstances.

Northern Landscape with Hand Stitch runs over two weekends to enable students to have time to work on their own and to reflect in between the two sessions. At the end of the first weekend students will go home with ideas to explore before the second weekend. The first session is Friday 8th to Sunday 10th April and the second session is Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th May. There are still places available on this course; you can find more information here.

Helen has a wealth of experience supporting artists. If you are worried about whether the course is right for you please contact me here and I’ll put you in touch with Helen. Spending time with like minded people, working and making art in a lovely space, can be a real boost to morale and confidence. I hope you’ll join myself and Helen in April and May.

Detail, full image below.

You may remember a small quilt (well small for me) that I made last year in response to the Contemporary Quilt Group challenge ‘Uncharted’ called Taming The Wilderness. It’s the long skinny one that is part of my Cadence series. The organisers will be showing all 77 entrants in different groupings at different events over the next 12-18 months. I am absolutely delighted that my quilt has been chosen to be one of the 35 quilts that will be shown at this summers Festival of Quilts (18th to 21st August). It will then travel to Exeter, Glasgow, Birmingham and London between September 2022 and April 2023 as part of the ICHF shows.

But before then the quilt is getting its’ first showing at QuiltFest at the Llangollen Museum in Wales. QuiltFest is a little smaller than normal due to Covid restrictions but will still be worth a visit if you live nearby. Llangollen is a lovely town surrounded by stunning countryside. Sadly I won’t make it this year but have enjoyed the show in the past.

Taming The Wilderness was inspired by the artwork on an album called The Wilderness by Explosions in the Sky. The artist is Jacob van Loon and you can find the piece 8th & Main here. His work is amazing and I can see it inspiring more pieces in the future. So, in all its glory, here is Taming The Wilderness -

I have a bumper crop of guest tutors teaching in my studio this year. Some are rescheduled workshops from 2020/21 and some are new for this year. The tutors are artists whose work I admire, who offer something different to the workshops I run and, most importantly, come highly recommended by friends and students.

We start the year with the fabulous Helen Parrott who will be teaching Northern Landscapes and Hand Stitch. In this five day workshop spread over two weekends you will explore mark making and hand stitch inspired by images of your favourite northern landscapes. The workshop combines creative personal development with individual coaching and is suitable for ‘intermediate’ embroiderers and textile artists. The dates are 8th to 10th April and 14th and 15th May and places are available.

I am delighted to tell you that Alice Fox will, after a 2 year delay, be teaching her Rust Marks workshop in the studio from the 22nd to 24th April. And Debbie Lyddon, again after a long delay, will be teaching her Decorative Surfaces for 3D Textiles workshop from the 3rd to the 6th May. Both these workshops are sold out but if you would like to go on a waiting list please contact me here.

I will be welcoming the lovely Ruth Brown into the studio twice this year. Many of you will know Ruth from her books on Cyanotype and on using Photoshop for textile art. More recently she has turned her talents to book binding and the workshop she ran here last summer was brilliant. The two workshops she will be teaching this year are both ‘stand alone’ workshops teaching different types of binding. Ruth will be teaching More Books for Textile Artists on 21st to 24th June and Books for Textile Artists on 30th August to 2nd September. There are 2 places available on the June workshop and 3 on the August workshop.

And finally, I am so looking forward to welcoming Louise Baldwin into the studio. Louise will be teaching her 4 day Accidentally on Purpose workshop from Sunday 24th July to Wednesday 27th July. In the workshop you will explore ways of constructing, breaking down and reconstructing a series of stitched mixed media works using a range of materials based around found packaging, fabric and ephemera, alongside any imagery that you might find particularly evocative. Because of a slight change of dates I now have 1 place available on this workshop.

I am feeling really positive about 2022 and looking forward to a year without cancellations / rescheduling. But I’m also cautious - I will be keeping the ‘Covid-safe’ measures in place in the studio for the foreseeable future including plastic screens between benches, mask wearing when moving around the studio and in shared work areas and lateral flow testing before and during the workshops.

If you have any questions you can contact me here or through the comments option. Thank you, Leah.

Sample made for my new Artefact series

My art goals for 2022 are simple. Make more. Submit more. The need to earn a living and to care for my family are what they are and mean that making art has to fit around them. One of the reasons I left industry and started teaching in my studio was to get a much better balance between these three parts of my life and it was, despite the disruption caused by the pandemic, the best decision I’ve ever made. I now have periods of time, mostly in the winter, when I can work on my art full time and without interruption. This is great for developing new ideas and starting on new series. But if I am going to make more art this year I need to figure out how to always have a piece or pieces part made that I can work on when I only have a few hours or a few days free.

I love making big art but the composition / construction stage really needs space (my big print bench and my design wall as a minimum, yes I’m spoilt) and time because I really don’t want to be unpinning hundreds of bits of fabric from my design wall each time I need it for a workshop. Whereas the quilting stage just needs room to get my sewing machine out. And a bit of clean space to fold / roll the quilt so that I can get it through the tiny throat on my machine. So, before my teaching schedule really kicks in in March I need to prepare several ‘backgrounds’ to use in Artefact and Cadence pieces. I can then spend the spring and summer quilting these backgrounds and adding the foreground details. Unfortunately I don’t completely ‘design’ my pieces early on in the process. My ideas evolve as I stitch. I don’t 100% decide on foreground details until I have finished the construction, and sometimes the quilting of the background. Inevitably some of the backgrounds that I prepare over the coming weeks will need to be cropped as I add those foreground details. Which feels wasteful but I’m hoping allows me to make more art this year.

My other goal is to submit more. I used to be good at keeping a list of upcoming calls for entry to curated shows and submitting proposals for gallery space but got out of the habit in 2020 when I lost touch with my art practise. I started submitting pieces again last year and have had some success with Cadence pieces but I need to build on this. I need a steady flow of new work to make this possible. And I need to become OK with rejection again. Because rejection is part of making art and cannot be a reason to hit the gin bottle and avoid the studio!

So my art goals are simple. Make more. Submit more.

My studio is a ‘bit of a tip’. Unlike our inglorious prime minister I won’t be asking somebody to pay for eye-wateringly expensive wallpaper to make it look pretty. Because my tip is a glorious tip! Everything has been moved about so that I can photograph some new pieces. Which is a sign that not only have I been creating new pieces but that I love them!

Because I work intuitively with my fabrics the early pieces in a new series are often not quite right or are, frankly, rubbish, and they don’t always get photographed. That was certainly the case with the Cadence series but then I was starting from a low point in terms of my artistic confidence. My new series has been fermenting inside my head for quite some time but I only unleashed it onto fabric once I had regained confidence in my creative process. There have been a few false starts, and yes I have printed (and thrown away) some butt ugly fabric, but I am actually rather pleased with the first two finished pieces. I’m not quite ready to share images of the full quilts but I am ready to talk about my inspirations and to tease you with a couple of images.

My new series is called Artefact. It is inspired by our relationship with man-made objects, especially those made with material taken straight from the earth and shaped into tools and decorative objects. Those objects which are collected and proudly displayed; those which are passed down within families; those that tell us about our past; and those that are lost to us. As a source of inspiration this has the potential to go in many different directions but I’m starting by referencing the vases and pots made by Pilkington Tile & Pottery Company. Their manufacturing site, which is now derelict, is only a few miles from where I live and I remember when their factory shop selling cheap tiles was still open. As with my Ruins series and my series on coal mining I like to work on subjects to which I feel some connection. And, as always I am inspired by our industrial heritage. In the detail shot below I used a breakdown printing technique to print the vase. I used a variety of printing techniques to create the fabrics used to make the background. I hope you like the result as much as I do!

Artefact 1 (detail)

Cadence 7

I hope you have all had the best Christmas possible and wish you a very Happy, Healthy and Creative New Year. Ours was still a little quieter than pre-pandemic as we chose to restrict our activities in the run up to Christmas Day so that we could celebrate as a family. The highlight, for me, was playing a new ‘cheaters’ addition of Monopoly on Boxing Day with Joe (son), Riley (grandson) and son Callum and his wife Lulu who came up from London for Christmas. Who knew that Callum was such a cheat!! Nothing fancy but so special.

It is that time of year when many of us look back at the previous year and make some plans for the following year. 2021 started in a pretty bleak place here in the UK and was a year in which too many families lost loved ones and all of us were affected by the stress and uncertainty that comes with lockdowns and restrictions. But 2021 was not a repeat of 2020, we are in a better place than we were thanks to vaccines, home testing and better treatments for Covid. Our NHS, social care workers and scientists are truly amazing.

When I look back at my year I see a lot more positives than negatives - life has not been ‘normal’ but it has been good. And you guys played a part in that - the support I have had from those of you who read this blog, buy from my shop or sign up for one of my workshops has been brilliant. I would especially like to take the time to thank those of you who have taken the time to sent me an email or card. You have made me laugh, made me cry and made me feel loved and supported, thank you.

So, my positives …..

I have found my way back to MAKING ART! Big happy dance!!! And it feels so good. I started the year tentatively working on pieces that were ‘process’ driven. I had no inspiration as such other than the joy of making. Using colours I love and my favourite breakdown printing techniques I have made a series of pieces called Cadence. The early pieces were rubbish but I kept going and have made some pieces that I think are beautiful. And, it turns out, that others agreed - Cadence 7 won the Art category at Festival of Quilts in the summer. (Yes, I got tearful!) This affirmation that I was on the right track has given me confidence in my creative process, something I lost in 2020. There will be more Cadence quilts as they are just joyful to make but I have ended 2021 making the first pieces in a new series …. I don’t want to jinx it so haven’t posted any images yet but I am rather happy with it so far.

I caught up on the majority of workshops that had been delayed from 2020. There was plenty of rearranging during the year and I’m grateful for the patience and understanding of my fabulous students. Alongside those workshops that had already been scheduled for 2021 this meant I taught many workshops ‘back to back’ which was exhausting but so, so satisfying. I also had three guest tutors in the studio; Ruth Brown, Rosie James and Christine Chester which was fun. I kept my Covid safe practices in place throughout the year and will do so into 2022. Thank you to my students for complying with this - the studio has felt like a safe place the whole time.

I am also rather proud of myself for developing my first online workshop. It was a massive learning curve completed in a short period of time whilst the studio was closed over the winter. I launched Breakdown Your Palette in March and have loved the interaction with students from all over the world.

Launching that online workshop also helped raise money for YoungMinds, a charity that supports young people with mental health issues. In total we raised £345, thank you. Definitely a positive.

Despite everything, when I look at the positives, 2021 was, on balance an OK year. And despite the uncertainty we face going into 2022 I’m looking forward to sharing many more positives with you.

Leah x

Self Portrait by Pippa Wardman

I love seeing the fabrics that my students print and dye during workshops - their work is so varied and inspirational. But I don’t often get to see what happens next - how they use their fabrics. I suspect that many pieces are put away in cupboards, but I hope that, at the very least, they get pulled out every so often and stroked lovingly. However earlier this autumn I asked my students to send me photos of work made using fabrics created here at Urban Studio North. And wow! The variety of work is amazing and I’m grateful for their help. I have put together a gallery of their work which can be accessed via the workshop page on my website. Have a look!

(And, whilst I’m here, a quick reminder that the last date you can place orders for delivery in the UK before Christmas is this Wednesday, the 15th.)

Stitched sample by Hilary Kimber using the selvedges from breakdown printed fabrics.

Although the last posting date is later I’m setting Wednesday 15th December as a cut off for pre-Christmas orders as I plan on taking a long break over Christmas and the New Year. Orders placed later than this will be posted at the start of January. (Unless I get a bit bored and fancy a trip to the Post Office!). I thought you might also like to know that I’ve added a few more new Wonky Print Inspiration Packs to my online shop.

I have now finished teaching for this year. The bad weather this week meant postponing the last two days teaching but other than that I’m happy, and relieved, to have been able to teach so many workshops this year. Despite the worries about the new variant we are much better place compared to this time last year. The rollout of vaccines has been amazing but I’m very grateful for the great attitude of all my students this year. We’ve worn masks, washed and sanitised hands, taken lateral flow tests and made sure that the studio has been a safe environment for all of us. Thank you to each and every one of year!

With no teaching scheduled until the end of January I can now turn all of my attention to making art. I’ve removed the plastic screens and re-arranged the benches to make the studio feel more ‘mine’. I’ve pinned all my ‘work in progress’ up on the design wall. And hidden the stock of chocolate biscuits so my beloved family can’t help themselves. Chocolate, and lots of strong coffee are an essential part of my creative process! The next quilt in the Cadence series is ready to quilt and I’ve got a completely new series in the development stage. So plenty to keep me busy!

Leah x

The weather in the UK has been awful for the last few days so I thought you might appreciate some eye candy! Last week I had the very great pleasure of welcoming Christine Chester to my studio. She taught her 5 day Poetry of Decay class and it was fabulous. It is a mixed media workshop in which students add layers and layers of texture and colour to paper and cloth. Christine worked the students hard but the results were worth it. My thanks to Christine and especially to the students - Inge, Pippa, Chris, Gill, Ruth, Judy and Lesley.