Sew Far, Sew Good: I Embroider On Old Tennis Rackets

I always stumble over my words when I answer the typical “so what do you do?” question. I’m a designer by training. I’m passionate about film photography, and I work as a VJ (which means I do visuals for music shows, and not what you think. Yeah, I know…). But lastly, and the most loudly, I say “embroiderer.” I love that term. It’s like being a carpenter or a bricklayer, because there is a simplicity to it, to being a ‘maker’. This is why I create the work.

There is a rhythm to sewing that I find extremely calming, matched with an unadulterated celebration of color, and then at the end I’ve produce something aesthetically-pleasing, so there is great reward in that entire process.

The first threadsketch I created was through a series of opportunities and mistakes. I was working at a gallery at one stage, with idle hands, and at the time I had nothing on me except cotton, a needle and a scrap piece of felt in my bag. I believe I drew a rabbit. Ideally, I shoot all my references, and much like traditional embroidery, I map out the lines before I move on to thread. There are no rules to my process, purely because I don’t really know any of the rules, and those that I do, I try my best to ignore, and in so that way I cannot know what I’m doing wrong. It’s a self-imposed freedom that makes embroidery feel like play.

Motivation and inspiration are two very different forces in my work, and are not mutually exclusive. I’m often motivated by boredom. Apparently I suffer from ‘ADS’ – always doing something. Inspiration comes from finding new materials to use: strange color palettes, conversations with good company and so on. Inspiration keeps me stitching through the times that I lack motivation, and vice-versa.

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