Artful Garden

The Artful Craft of Embroidered Gardens is the given title for an Embroiderers Guild and National Trust joint exhibition project.

EG branch members throughout the country were asked to make work inspired by the gardens of a specified National Trust property nearby - Standen, near East Grinstead in my case. I made fanciful and flowing drawings of various plants from the Standen gardens, and translated the drawings into screen printing and appliqué.

Artful Garden

My drawings of various plants from the Standen gardens are very stylised, but I also made more realistic depictions of the conservatory to the house and of the bridge in the garden.

The drawings were turned into thermoplastic screens to print silk and velvet fabrics, and also to discharge colour from velvet I had previously dyed with procion.

Artful Garden

Standen House, the property which inspired this work, has a strong connection with William Morris. He is particularly famous for his wallpaper designs featuring flowing drawings of flowers and plant life making patterns, in the era of Art Deco.

So I decided to do my plant drawings in a stylised and fanciful way, in the spirit of William Morris and his period. I drew the conservatory and garden bridge more realistically, so that my work would be recognisable as representing the Standen gardens.

Artful Garden

I chose to use a combination of silk and velvet fabrics for this work, to give a feeling of the sumptuous nature of the gardens.

The silks were either dyed by myself, or recycled from old ties or other garments. The velvets were similarly dyed by me, or were offcuts from curtains or upholstery.

Artful Garden

This image shows a detail from the smaller of the two finished panels. It depicts the bridge from the Standen gardens, which is surrounded by magnificent trees and foliage. There are fern trees and other exotic specimens, which I have appliquéd in an ‘art deco’ style.