Anouk expresses her inner most emotions through stitch and mixed media. Finding your niche in a creative world can be fraught with challenges especially when living alone in a large and impersonal city far from family and friends. In this interview, Anouk shares with us the life-changing moments that influenced her decision to forge an artistic career in textiles.

Since being selected in 2013 into Harbourfront Centre Artist-in-Residence program (for which she received the Dalglish Foundation Venture Award when she graduated), Anouk now lives in Toronto.

Born in a textile factory in 1980 (Québec Canada) to parents who were garment manufacturers, Textile Artist Anouk Desloges’ method of work and the plurality of techniques and media she uses has undoubtedly been influenced by that experience.

Anouk holds a BFA from Université Laval (Québec City) and a Diploma in Sculpture with honours from the Maison des Métiers d’Art de Québec. Her work has been awarded prizes and fellowships from a number of organizations, including both the Ontario and Québec Art Councils. She has exhibited in Canada, France, Guatemala, Latvia and some pieces are displayed in public and coveted in private collections.

Isobel Currie’s love of thread and fine work was nurtured by her mother and developed in her studies at Manchester Polytechnic, now Manchester Metropolitan University. She creates breathtakingly intricate work using simple, traditional hand stitches, which she puts her own twist on by exploring their three-dimensional potential.

In this article, which is part of our From Conception to Creation series, Isobel discusses the creation of Fly Stitch Autumn Landscape, a piece that has been exhibited by the famous 62 group of textile artists, of which the artist is a keen and active member.

Name of piece: Fly Stitch Autumn Landscape

Year of Piece: 2017

Since completing her year of fine arts, Chloe Redfern has been on a creative voyage of discovery. The textile artist has tried everything from bookbinding to collage and believes that this has guided her creative practice; helping her to find her passion for hand embroidered hoop art.

The daughter of an artist, Chloe is inspired by nature. This motivates her to create exquisite works of art, using sumptuous colours and experimental stitches. She has written articles and created patterns for magazines and runs an online shop.

In this interview, Chloe tells us how growing up surrounded by creativity allowed her the confidence to explore different artistic techniques and which stitches she likes to use. We learn that, sometimes, she just lets the thread guide her; working in an intuitive way and that she enjoys nothing better than looking at her thread collection.

Chloe Redfern: Wildflowers (Detail), 2018, Hand embroidery with stranded cotton thread

Using needlepoint and spray paint to create abstract contemporary art.

Embroidery artist, lecturer and fashion designer Zoe Gilbertson creates energy-filled abstract art using spray-painted canvas with tapestry wool stitches.

Her path into textile art started with an early interest in fashion design and textiles from around the world. She develops her works through experimentation within boundaries and likes to fuse needlepoint hand-stitching with pixelated, digital design to study the interactions between colour and shape.

Zoe created a solo exhibition for Rugby Art Gallery and her work has been featured in XStitch Magazine, Venison Magazine, Handmade UK Magazine, Workbox Magazine and Fubiz. She has also featured as an inspirational artist in the book Mr X Stitch Guide to Cross Stitch.

It’s so easy to have your head turned by every new, exciting textile technique that comes your way. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It can be great fun to try out new processes and incorporate them into your textile art.

But using too many techniques can also become overwhelming. And as we’ve previously explored in the articles Are you a textile technique addict? and Diagnosis: Artistic paralysis, the result is often a chaotic creative process, a confused visual vocabulary and an indistinct brand of textile art.

Going back to basics doesn’t mean stepping backwards creatively. In fact, going deep with simple stitch techniques and learning how to speak through them in your own unique way can push your practice and your artistic identity forward.

In this article, we explore  simple stitch techniques and showcase how they’re being used by some of the world’s most inventive and inspiring textile artists.