Textile Art and Clothing

For this textile collection I have found inspiration from the Neolithic and Bronze Age people and their way of life and crafts. I wanted to create textiles that represent the simple tunic garment with added hand-worked weavings, stitch and hand-painted motifs. The people of this time were very experienced in their sewing of clothing and hand made crafts using materials from the landscape including Flax Linen, bone, wood, horn, and natural yarns often made from plants and animal hair. Needles were made of hand-carved bone used for handcrafted stitchwork and sewing and closing garments. Pottery was decorated with ‘petroglyphs’ and finger indents to form patterns.

The people of the landscape were skilled farmers and would gather plants for cooking, so my tunics and waistcoats have added hanging and removable pockets with sturdy leather belts, which was inspired by the idea of collecting and gathering. I have also tried to make the closings of garments simple as it would have been in those ancient days, by using simple duffles, thick wool yarns and hand-decorated wooden buttons. To decorate the garments I created a mixture of weavings made from a hand loom with patterns taken from petroglyphs, hand-painted birds and animal motifs and symbols from rock art.