Drawn to Thread

Julie’s talk takes the listener through her exploration of stitch, explaining how she uses thread to develop her own way of making to enable her to navigate traumatic loss. Whilst the talk does cover the subject of loss through suicide, it encapsulates the humorous side of making, when things go wrong and when the tutors seemingly unhelpful words launch the maker onto a path that forges an award-winning career.

In the talk, Julie will explain how her career started, how it was at first deemed a luxury, something she could do once the working day and family chores were complete. A bottom of the heap frivolity that family time rarely permitted. But then everything changed, her husband Carl, aged 43 and the father of their two sons, ended his life through suicide. With her life and that of her young sons thrown into chaos, art became a way of surviving loss, a way of living and a way of being.

For Julie, the path of creativity, was one of trials and tribulations as processes were explored, words were unravelled and errors of making left to happen. Julie wasn’t an embroiderer; she was an artist looking for a way to speak. In the talk Julie will explain how thread helped her to do this. How her love of her sewing machine opened new ways to draw after being reprimanded for her pencil and paper drawings by a tutor on her degree. The love of simple line drawings made on calico fabric, starting at the beginning and finishing at the end without any mistakes being corrected. Realising that all preconceived ideas of drawing had been abandoned, Julie explored the possibility of pushing the process further. Within days, she had picked up water-soluble fabric and riffling through her box of threads, set about drawing her late husband’s camera. With a tutor now encouraging her to complete her drawing with thread, she continued. The work was finished; the mistakes were left unchanged and the artwork won her first award. Her love of stitch was born.

With her love of stitch established, Julie will explain what inspired each project, how the making was a comment on how she was managing her loss and how the next point of direction was established – The Royal College of Art, major textile open calls and the 62 Group of textile artists. And during this making, how her ability to talk about her loss through beautiful, stitched artworks has enabled her to live her best life.

Throughout, Julie will show detailed images of her making, the materials and processes used and the final project outcomes. Julie is happy to take questions on her artwork and the subject of loss.