Recycled Fabric Vessels

I work creatively in textiles and mixed media from my studio at home in Dartmouth - mainly using recycled materials to create 3 dimensional pieces.

For the Trail gallery 2009 I am exhibiting my fabric sculptures and vessels - these are created by cutting, tearing, sewing, folding, wrapping, tying different fabrics and setting it with cement and plaster so that forms and textures are 'frozen' and can be explored. Some fabrics I find washed up on the beach - often worn and torn - others are from clothing, old sheets and blankets or curtains - anything is fair game to work with! By layering colours, earth pigments and varnish I find the textures are highlighted, adding to their depth and interest.

I enjoy the contradiction of hard and soft, masculine and feminine qualities that interplay in the materials.

My inspiration comes from the natural world - the textures and mixes of colour and shimmering we find in the landscape, on the beach, in a leaf and what we find in our inner unconscious landscape.

The process of transforming used and discarded materials into art objects is deeply satisfying (and environmentally friendly!) and by creating objects with a sense of inner space I feel I am making a contained vessel from which new creative energy can emerge.

beth.hughes@talktalk.net