I am strongly influenced by the natural world, in particular sea and landscapes that change with the weather. I love walking and looking, allowing images to settle in my mind's eye. Sketching and painting whilst outside has been a more recent activity which gives me many starting points for my stitched work. Walking on the granite landscape of Dartmoor or by the sea gives one an objective view and a space in the mind in which to develop ideas. Creativity is an absorbing occupation where time disappears. Making pieces that start life as a colour, a shape, a fabric or a thread and are assembled in a multitude of ways is a thrilling process. I love trying to find the essence of the subject I am working on.

As a choreographer I am used to arranging moving bodies and I see movement in everything, so I try to create movement in my stitched pieces; arranging the threads and fabrics to create stormy waves, falling leaves and fields of waving corn or flocking birds and darting fish. Scrunched chiffon secured with fly stitch creates sheets of rain, and swathes of running stitches can give the effect of light and shadow on curving architecture.

I like to use a variety of techniques, choosing the most appropriate for each piece of work. Machine embroidery with massed stitches can give a painterly effect. Cut shapes, pieced together and quilted produce a soft tactile three dimensional result, and hand stitching can bring a variety of textures to a piece. Layering is another interesting method, which uses chiffon and sheer fabrics to build up a depth of colour and an atmosphere.

I have always been a stitcher and maker but was given a real boost when I took the City and Guilds Creative Embroidery course parts 1 and 2. Many more doors were opened to me - in one way giving so many more ways to create stitched textiles yet in another way providing me with far too many choices - so many ideas and not enough time.

Since completing the City and Guilds course I have been exhibiting in various local venues – the Chard art gallery in Hooked on Books in 2002, the Meeting House Arts Centre, Ilminster in 2004 the Exmouth Art Gallery in 2005, Otterton Mill in Devon in 2005/6, annually in the Beaminster Festival, Dorset, since 2003, at Mangerton Mill Embroidery Studio, Yeovil Theatre Art Gallery and Falmouth Arts Centre in 2006 and Salisbury Art Centre in 2007.

In 2008 I showed work at the Schoolhouse Gallery in Morvah, Cornwall and in the Bridport Open Studios event in West Dorset. I also had successful exhibitions as part of Dorset Art Weeks 2008 and 2010 and in Sturminster Newton's Exchange Gallery at Christmas 2009 and 2010.

I am now working towards another show at The Schoolhouse in Morvah in June 2011 and later this year at the Pier Gallery in Clevedon Somerset.
» » Visit my workshops and events page

Combining the creative processes of choreographing with designing for a textile piece has become an interest for me. I run workshops called Dancing Stitches, which involve translating a movement response to a visual or audio stimulus, into marks, lines and shapes which can then be adapted into design for fabric and stitch.

In 2006 I ran a year long arts council funded project called Threads of Memory Footprints of Time which was an intergenerational event based on the stimulus of the iron- age hill forts of Pilsdon Pen in West Dorset and Ham Hill in South Somerset. Children made costumes and dances based on the history of Ham Hill and the adults made 2 metre panels, costumes and dances based on several visits to Pilsdon Pen, for their combined performances. The resulting stitched textile work was full of movement and vitality and the performances were very lively. The participants experienced new exciting ways into creativity.

Since then I have run annual weekend workshops along similar lines opening the interpretation of the movement and dance to a wider form of artistic expression but with fabric and stitch underpinning the form. The next one is on April 2nd and 3rd in West Dorset. Visit my workshops and events page

I lead day workshops on Dancing Stitches, and other subjects, for the Embroidery Guild, of which I am a member and West Country Embroiderers. For details of these please visit the workshops and events page.

Over many years I have taught creative and contemporary dance based on Rudolf Laban’s principles, in schools, on summer schools, including Laban International Courses (LInC), on teacher training courses for the Laban Guild and have choreographed dances in schools and in the community and I feel that this helps my work in stitched textiles. I still feel at the beginning and that there is so much more to explore but I love every minute of it even the exasperating moments that inevitably come with the creative process!