'Stop and smell the flowers' and maybe the weeds too
As one of my earlier projects, this one was born purely out of a love for nature. The majority of my work was heavily focussed on looking closely into nature, noticing all the details, colours and structures hidden within the microscopic layer of the natural environment. Appearing as whole landscapes of their own, from dense jungles of weeds to feathery carpets of green moss engulfing the craggy cliff-like ridges of bark, my aim was to draw our attention to the things we may often overlook or even see as a nuisance. This project was at the start of my journey studying textiles, before I had specialised in weave, and therefore constitutes a wide range of textile techniques such as embroidery, knit and print.
The first of many investigations into moss led me to the small tufts found growing on walls, stones and bricks with fine spores poking out. Below is a series of studies showing how the fine and delicate quality of this moss was translated first into drawing then into embroideries and print designs.
I also wanted to communicate a sense of connection and flow as everything in nature including ourselves, big or small, is part of a huge network-an ecosystem. The importance of even the tiniest things is easily overlooked. The result of these concepts was a looser and more abstract interpretation of moss using continuous line and following a similar style in embroidery by hand and machine.
After initially exploring various mosses through relatively flat and two dimensional work, I was curious to recreate and exaggerate some of the textures I found, in light of 'zooming' into the intricacies of nature. The resulting work was more three dimensional and highly textured to reveal new forms and shapes embedded within the tiny structures of flora such as moss.
Hidden structures
Much like weeds, dyeing plants are also commonly seen an inconvenience and something to get rid of- but even amongst the death and rot of the natural world there is beauty to be found. Perhaps one of the most exquisite examples of this are leaf skeletons, the complex yet fragile network of veins left behind when a leaf dries up. This gave plenty of inspiration to look at positive and negative space, and again, drawing upon the idea of connectivity.
A tangent, because who can really resist
Whilst the dominant subject of this project was the forgotten elements of nature that are often ignored, trampled or picked at, there was still time and space for a small deviation into the world of flowers, whether ordinary or extraordinary.
'Land corals' is how I have always seen lichens, a fascinating organism that is both plant and fungi. The flat, crusty 'leaves' form great structures branching out and engulfing the vessel they grow on. The curling edges overlapping and intertwining creates a myriad of texture, shape and colour catching the light, dark and everything in between.
While I explored a range of natural organisms through textiles, my journey through this project led me back to moss. In developing my final outcome in a fashion context, I focussed heavily on the texture of moss and how this could be presented at different scales and in a both realistic and abstract approach.
As this project was inspired by nature, sustainability was a key area of research. The fabric used in this project is all organic cotton in varying weights (canvas, calico and voile), with the cotton yarn being sourced and spun in a GOTs certified mill in India; as cotton is a natural fibre it is fully biodegradable, and will not release any harmful chemicals into the environment if organic. Jute/Hessian was the base of a small number of samples and was also natural and organic. While the threads I was using for hand and machine (not digital) embroidery was also cotton, the yarns were a range of fibres as I was using and recycling yarns I already had; this included wool, merino wool and recycled acrylic.
*The garments (hat and dress) were entirely produced by myself, the final photoshoot was done in collaboration with a group of photography students; all rights of the photographs belong to the photographer.