Interview: How a Self-Taught Stitcher Incorporates Embroidery into Her Paintings

Artist Fleur Woods takes a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary approach to her tex­tile art. Com­bin­ing ele­ments of stitch­ing and paint­ing, her images have an ethe­re­al qual­i­ty that cel­e­brates nature—in many ways. The impres­sive pieces are simul­ta­ne­ous­ly fig­u­ra­tive and abstract; they let the two inter­act worlds with one anoth­er in an easy, almost con­ver­sa­tion­al way.

So, how does she do it? I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to speak with Fleur about the inspi­ra­tion behind her work, favorite mate­ri­als, and much more. Scroll down to read my inter­view with her. After­ward, be sure to check out her Etsy shop and fol­low her on Insta­gram.

How would you describe what your work is?

I like to describe my work as con­tem­po­rary stitched paint­ings inspired by flo­ra. As a most­ly self taught artist, I came to stitch organ­i­cal­ly via mixed media and so still con­sid­er myself a painter, my mark mak­ing just involves a lot of stitch.

What inspires your mixed media embroidery? 

My major inspi­ra­tion is flo­ra, the nat­ur­al world is so pre­cious and I love being able to tell sto­ries about its beau­ty, diver­si­ty, and the incred­i­ble resilience it dis­plays. I am so intrigued by the details of flow­ers and leaves, moss, and weeds it all just total­ly makes my heart sing. My soul is always so hap­py when I’m mak­ing art and when I’m in nature so com­bin­ing the two gives me the ulti­mate heart top up.

How do you see the inspi­ra­tion for your work grow­ing and changing?

My inspi­ra­tion grows and changes as I do. Cur­rent­ly, I’m total­ly obsessed with lis­ten­ing to pod­casts like Super Soul Ses­sions and Big Mag­ic, there’s an evo­lu­tion occur­ring in my right now that I feel is influ­enced by my per­son­al spir­i­tu­al jour­ney and basi­cal­ly a whole lot of soul-searching.

You say that you “come to stitch as a mixed media artist”. What lead you to embroidery?

I guess it prob­a­bly sub­con­scious­ly start­ed when my Mum gave me my great grand­moth­er’s hand-stitched table­cloth, green linen with white flow­ers all over, it has always been a trea­sure to me.

Found objects and col­lage have formed a big part of my art prac­tice over the years and as an op-shop (thrift shop) addict, I would find old books and embroi­dered linens to col­lage into my work. As my prac­tice became more inten­tion­al, I want­ed all of the imagery to be ele­ments that I had cre­at­ed. So I stopped using found stuff and cre­at­ed it all myself… stitch was the last bit that was miss­ing from the equation.

The real tip­ping point was two things, a book called Thrift to Fan­ta­sy by Rose­mary Mcleod which doc­u­ments hand crafts of New Zealand women through the 1930s-50s. I was total­ly enchant­ed by their abil­i­ty to cre­ate such beau­ty with so lit­tle. The oth­er was when my framer (and friend) Gill asked if I had stitched an ele­ment of one of my col­lages, I regret­ful­ly said no and at that moment decid­ed that I would teach myself.

What are the tech­niques you use in your work? Where/how did you learn them?

90% of the tech­niques I use I have devel­oped through play and exper­i­men­ta­tion in my stu­dio. I paint, illus­trate, col­lage, and stitch most­ly. Ini­tial­ly I stitched into paper which was a major learn­ing expe­ri­ence, then I start­ed work­ing into my heav­i­ly paint­ed and col­laged can­vas­es which also posed some chal­lenges… even­tu­al­ly, I found a hap­py mar­riage with acrylic paint, gouache, linen, and stitch.

Because I taught myself to stitch by exam­in­ing the found embroi­deries hang­ing around my house, I have some ran­dom tech­niques that are not any­where near to the guild stan­dards but I love the free­dom of mak­ing things up as I go and not get­ting too caught up in the technicalities.

Learn­ing French knots while hav­ing a cup of tea with the embroi­dery guild ladies was com­plete­ly life chang­ing though as my self-taught method was pret­ty hilar­i­ous on reflection.

What are your favorite tools to use? Any that you can’t live without?

I can’t live with­out my plas­tic clip togeth­er square frame, because I work on large pieces of linen I love how I can move it around and how light and easy to hold it is. I rarely use round hoops.

Oth­er mate­ri­als include:

• Union Fibre hand dyed 4 ply silk-meri­no blend wools
• Bohin crewel and sharps nee­dles are my favs.
• The gen­tle art — sim­ply shak­er threads that are so beau­ti­ful­ly hand dyed
• DMC 6 strand floss, the col­or range is just so good

When cre­at­ing a new piece, what’s the first thing that you do?

First up, I drag big pieces of linen out to the lawn and paint them with lots of water, acrylic paint, and big brush­es, it’s messy and wet and real­ly fun. I leave the linen in big pud­dles of watery paint out in the sun to dry by evap­o­ra­tion which cre­ates some beau­ti­ful water­marks. Then I usu­al­ly get my favorite ref­er­ence book, the Read­ers Digest Com­plete Book of the Gar­den and paint my imagery on by hand straight onto the now dry linen using the illus­tra­tions in the book or real plants as a guide.

What’s the most chal­leng­ing part of your artis­tic process?

Time! it takes sooooo long. I love the process so much so mak­ing the work isn’t a hard­ship but the time it takes means that I can’t always make enough to meet demand.

How do you over­come it?

I’ve just cre­at­ed a new process and col­lec­tion of work that I hope will allow me to strike a great bal­ance. [It] just launched over on Green­house Inte­ri­ors.

For these pieces I have been mak­ing paper col­lages that I have dig­i­tal­ly print­ed onto linen, I then add ele­ments of paint, stitch, and gold leaf so that each piece is orig­i­nal and has it’s own ener­gy but the process is weeks rather than months so I can make a few more to meet demand and still bring a great sense of joy to each work.

How long does it take for you to com­plete a piece? 

Sooooo long often that I have stopped count­ing, I nev­er real­ly know when I begin how long a piece will take, detail is very impor­tant to me so I real­ly can­not resist the urge to go back in and add more.

Gen­er­al­ly, I work on three to five pieces at once so that I can keep switch­ing between them which allows me to see each work with fresh eyes and helps me ‘see’ when a piece is done. I don’t usu­al­ly have a com­plete plan when I begin, it’s a fair­ly organ­ic process.

How do you know when it’s done?

Know­ing some­thing is fin­ished for me is part visu­al assess­ment, look­ing at things like com­po­si­tion, detail, and col­or, ask­ing have I told the sto­ry enough plus a big part is intu­ition and learn­ing to let go.