ccunningham-textileartist.com captures the essence of my very being. I have always been creative, from making clothes for my Pandy as a child, to needlepoint and applique at school. My Mother and Grandmothers were dressmakers and knitters, before it became fashionable. With a background in crafts, and learning the basics of Textiles at school my foundation was set. I rely upon these traditional skills to create my Textile wall hangings.

 

My works are inspired by many things. I am a child of the Seventies, with outrageous homemade fashions, bold wallpaper print and shag pile carpet. I have been many things: a ballerina, gymnast, academic, model, poet, hippy and artist. I love camping and gardening, to be free of the constraints we are encouraged to live by. My love of interior design, textile print, fashion and furniture all contribute to my indulgent pleasure of collecting and recycling from car booties, charity shops and markets. I am drawn to the history of a life lived, to be reworked into a thing of beauty. My traditional structure is counterbalanced by an experimental approach to working with unusual materials such as cat hair and eroded fabrics.

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As a child I enjoyed many camping trips, seaside escapades and family gatherings. Old Aunties, Elsie and Hilda, feature in the Childhood Nostalgia series, adding a sense of real time. Poetry, hand embroidered in silk threads and  wool, provides an emotional layering to works, enriching the viewer with my own experiences. 

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I enjoy the freedom of working from home. My time is divided between researching, collecting materials, sketching, creating structured textiles by hand, embellishing surfaces, quilting, photographing and editing works to add to site. Seasonal change is my natural clock, with new textiles created over the Winter and Summer months, to be photographed outside in Spring and Autumn when light is at it's best.

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