Artist Statement

Although I find myself dedicated to technical skills within weaving, I find myself even more drawn to the combination of contemporary art combined with traditional skills. And, what better way is there to develop traditional skills in weaving other than tartan? A world-wide symbol of weaving using a 2/2 twill, a striped warp, and the repetition of the warp backwards as the weft. Having always had a huge love for tartan, mainly started by my 13 year old self thinking the sex pistols were the best thing to happen to the world, I was sold. Ever since then I’ve had the drive and need to be able to create something I love. I find it extremely hard to like something and not make myself learn how to do it. I can’t enjoy something unless I understand technically how I could re-create it myself. Within a few weeks of re-searching double-cloths and pleats, I had already started to weave using them as my passion simply takes hold.

Alongside my passion for tartan, I have an ever-growing interest in psychoanalysis, firstly inspired by the ways in which our brains work. The connections, the fibres, the flow, the ways in which a signal is sent that makes your body do things, it makes me weave. The way cloths can flow, and repeat these signals. The way cloths can track those thoughts. When a fabric is woven, the fibres are forever embedded, just like the motion of the fibres. Then as I began to read more and more about psychoanalysis, I began to involve Freud’s theory of making the “unconscious mind conscious” created to help with anxiety issues. Does textile art work as a substitute? Can something like tartan that’s used in comforting ways such as scarves and blankets, also portray images of discomfort, and make people more aware of their unconscious mind by secretly displaying imagery and patterns from within the brain? I believe so.