Practice & collaboration

Alongside my studio practice, I work with organisations, museums, charities and communities to develop sculpture and public art projects rooted in place and history.

These projects often begin with research and conversation, bringing together different perspectives before a sculpture or installation takes shape. I enjoy working across the creative and practical sides of a project — from developing an initial idea and engaging audiences, through to fundraising, commissioning, fabrication and installation.

With almost two decades of professional practice, I have developed experience of delivering projects at a range of scales, working with artists, foundries, fabricators, communities and stakeholders to turn ambitious ideas into realised works of art.

Collaboration is an extension of my studio practice: another way of bringing knowledge, stories and making together.

The Garden Studio

I work from my garden studio in the East Midlands, where the processes at the heart of my practice can unfold slowly and experimentally.

It is a place for making, testing and discovering — where materials can be handled, altered and reworked, and where ideas develop through the physical act of making.

The studio connects the different parts of my practice: weaving and casting, research and experimentation, inherited techniques and new possibilities.

This is where the work begins.

A language inherited

My relationship with weaving is rooted in the history of the East Midlands, a region shaped by generations of textile workers, makers and manufacturers.

My own family history is part of this story. For generations, weaving, knitting and making formed part of the working lives of people in my family, creating a connection between the gestures I use in my studio today and those practised by earlier generations.

I am interested in what is carried through these processes. Not simply the finished object, but the knowledge of how to make it — the rhythm of repetition, the tension of a thread, the structure of a knot, the movement of the hands.

These gestures can be both practical and expressive. They connect the present to the past, while allowing an inherited language to be transformed into something new.

This relationship between making, memory and history has become an important part of my practice. It has led me to explore how sculpture can give physical form to stories that might otherwise remain unseen.

From textile to bronze

My work began with an exploration of how textile processes could be translated into sculpture. I became fascinated by the structures created through weaving, knotting, crochet, basketry and macramé, and by the possibilities of taking these familiar processes into a much less familiar material.

In 2013 I developed a way of weaving directly in wax, creating delicate, three-dimensional structures that could then be cast into bronze using the lost-wax process. What began as an experiment became a defining part of my practice.

The transformation from wax to bronze is important to me. Something that begins as fragile and temporary becomes permanent, while the marks and gestures of the original making remain visible in the finished sculpture.

I continue to experiment with materials, processes and technologies, looking for ways to extend what these traditional techniques can do. The work sits between craft and sculpture, between inherited knowledge and experimentation, and between the hand-made and the industrial.

Making histories visible

History is an important thread running through my practice. I am drawn to the stories held within places and communities, and to the people whose work and experiences have shaped them.

Many of my projects begin with research — looking at archives, landscapes, family histories and local narratives, and finding ways to translate what I discover into sculpture. I am particularly interested in histories that have been overlooked or are not immediately visible: the everyday lives, labour and knowledge that sit behind the stories we choose to remember.

Working collaboratively is often part of this process. Community weaving, workshops and conversations can become part of the research as well as the making, allowing different voices and experiences to become embedded within the work.

The resulting sculptures are not intended to simply illustrate history. They offer another way of encountering it — through material, gesture, place and the physical presence of an object.