Display of Little Objects

Very often when you you buy a tiny piece of craft from a shop it looks kind of lost or out of place when you bring it home  away from the backdrop of a shop display. For me it's the same when you produce a little gem of your own - it needs company to 'big' it up. It becomes part of a cohesive art piece in company rather than a collection of stuff.

My embroidered beads are an ongoing theme that I return to in between larger projects and when energy levels are low. They give me a sense of achievement whilst waiting for the creative part of my brain to drag me into the next obsession.

I've used entemology pins to display each 'bead' as I was thinking of those scientific trays of pinned insects or butterflies whilst making this. Each individual specimen is part of my need to ask myself about how to look and feel and make something beautiful. My curiosity with colour, texture and pattern drives me to constantly refine each little bead or button I produce, looking for some kind of perfection. This can be seen in the technical ability of this piece - my early beads were quite crude but had a vitality about them that my increasing skills find harder to capture  - this case is almost a personal history of my journey in colour and embroidery and technique. The wonderful thing is that there is still a long way to travel.

I'm teaching the making of my embroidered beads at the Peterborough branch of the  Embroiderers Guild on the 25th of Feb.

I may do one more class after that but I am am not intending to become a teacher  I much prefer the role of student.