Gwen Hedley, M.S.D.C, B.Ed.
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Painted patched calico and papers.
Machine and hand stitching. Originally trained as a primary teacher, specialising in Creative Arts, I moved to Adult Education in 1990. I have a Diploma in Stitched Textiles, and currently tutor the Advanced Embroidery Workshop at East Berks. College, and a Part 2, City and Guilds Embroidery course in Dublin. Memberships include The Practical Study Group, The Society of Designer Craftsmen and The Embroiderers Guild. My work has featured in several books and magazines and is in collections in UK and abroad. I have written for several publications, and have published Surfaces for Stitch. I travel widely as a freelance tutor for a range of stitching and design areas. In my personal work, I am instinctively drawn towards worn surfaces, where line, image and colour have disintegrated with the passing of time. Sources have included torn images from stripped hoardings, and surfaces qualities of museum artefacts. I draw directly from source, and photograph to record information. I often paint directly onto old cloth, capitalising on the darned areas, holes, worn edges etc, that give a sense of history. Stitching by hand and machine is kept simple, using the needle as a drawing tool, to redefine, give emphasis or adjust colour. Work is often ripped, reassembled and pieced. My current work is concerned with the power of the sea, and how its movements process the surfaces of stone, wood, metal and other flotsam and jetsam. Crevices are packed with shingle. Papers, plastics, and cloth scraps are folded and half buried. Whatever man leaves upon the shore, the sea swallows it up, and returns it in gentler form - brash colours faded and dulled, hard edges softened and surfaces smoothed. Tidelines
1: Dungeness (left) Tidelines 1 includes all manner of materials collected from the shore at Dungeness. Items are sewn into pleats of cloth - a technique that reflects the way in which the tide shifts the shingle and its contents in horizontal bands, filling nooks and crannies tightly. Art of the Stitch: 2001. View detail.
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