My work is rooted in process. It is also grounded in place and locality which means looking around in curiosity is essential to my work. With process as the focus, design is through trial and error, learning things practically through the tactile. For the last few years wool has been the most exciting medium. So given the opportunity to work with sheep fleeces straight from local farms has been the greatest of pleasures. My skills have grown in sorting, washing, carding and spinning as well as weaving by hand and on the swiss arm loom. Each of which have given me different insights into the nature of this material at the centre of the project. For this collection I have been sponsored by Uist wool, an incredible vertical mill who work as a social enterprise on the Isle of Uist adding value to local wool and cherishing traditions of reliance upon the gifts of the land. Its an honour to feel this project is in parallel with their work.

Having researched the relationship we have to the land in an academic context, I have been looking for other people who might have a similar or different understanding of locality in their practice. With this in mind, I have asked several textile practitioners and wool fanatics to tell me about their relationship to locality in their work. This has become a very wholesome, insightful and personal body of research and I look forward to building on it as my understanding of this cornerstone of my practice develops. For this project I’ve used yarn from Uist Wool, a vertical mill who use ‘material available on their doorstep’ to add value to local agriculture. Working with these fibres has strengthened my connection to locally sourced and traceable materials, reinforcing the relationship between landscape, process, and cloth. The patience and intention required by these processes have deepened my connection to slowness within making. In designing this bespoke wall hanging/ gallery piece I hope to encourage others to take time to consider the its origin and all of the hands involved in its making to be valued for its materiality and craftsmanship, while reminding us that so much of what we need exists within our immediate surroundings. In my experience and understanding, textiles and Land are always linked because fibres are grown and decompose in land through their lifecycle from ‘field to fibre to field’.