Kate Findlay is a textile artist with a background in industrial textiles. Having completed her degree she worked in the carpet industry for a while before retraining as a teacher which gave her more time to pursue her own work along side teaching. She is passionate about the importance of art in education which she believes includes many transferable skills. It was while she was teaching at primary level that she embarked on her ‘Town’ series of quilts. The children had collaborated on a quilt to illustrate their home town of Henley and it was so successful that Kate was inspired to pursue the idea further and so her first series of quilts was born.
Kate makes art quilts using the technique of raw edged applique and uses bondaweb to secure the fabrics rather than stitch. All her pieces are presented framed and glazed to make the point they are works of art. The pieces are backed with white felt rather than the traditional layering method and can include decorative free motion or hand stitching.
After the Town series Kate decided to do a bigger body of work and her inspiration was the Hadron Collider! She is fascinated by patterns particularly the ones visible via the collider so having gained permission to use the images she set to work. She started with her sketch book playing with ideas of how to use fabric and found objects in her work. She decided to present the work in the format of a circle within a square and produced experimental textiles rather than conventional quilts. It was a steep learning curve! Manipulating large pieces was challenging especially as Kate likes to use a variety of textiles not all of which bond together happily! Eventually she discovered the best approach was to work in quarters and then assemble the whole piece and she discovered that including screen printing into her work gave depth and perspective. By now Kate also realised she needed to move away from the circle within a square format to give more freedom of expression. The large quilts took time to complete and the market for such things was limited but Kate persevered and completed the body of work.
After the large quilts Kate wanted to move on to something smaller and more manageable so she began a series of mini journal quilts approximately ten to twelve inches square. These small picture quilts were made using the confetti technique. Hundreds of small pieces of fabric are scattered over a picture that has been painted, stencilled or stamped then stitched onto a suitable fabric and secured with stitch and invisible tulle. The effect is remarkable but Kate discovered that she needed to work with hand dyed fabrics as manufacturers have a habit of discontinuing the very fabric you need more of! This series attracted attention and Kate was approached by a greeting card company to produce cards and calendars and she did some work for television craft channels. A by product of the work involved in licensing pieces for commercial use was the kits idea. Kate now sells confetti technique kits so that others may discover this innovative way of working.
Photographs and text used with permission from Kate Findlay
