Diana McKinnon MSDC
Member of Society of Designer Craftsmen
Inspiration
My creativity was inspired from early childhood by my grandmother and both parents. There was always embroidery, sewing, knitting and exquisitely iced cakes for family weddings, birthdays and Christmas cakes that my father spent hours icing. I still have his steel ruler that levelled the flat icing, and his tin of nozzles that piped the most intricate designs.
I studied art at Teacher Training College and while teaching and raising a family, I developed many new artistic skills from ceramics, installations, working with professional artists and setting up exhibitions. The culmination for me was achieving a City & Guilds Part 1 & 2 in Creative Embroidery. Manipulating fabric and stitch stirred up in me a passion to push the boundaries of traditional work and reflect on all the skills that I had acquired over the years.
My travels to Canada, Australia & New Zealand inspired me to capture the diversity of the natural environment. As I started to exhibit in galleries I began my work on the English Countryside. Bluebell Woods held a fascination, with the play of light changing the patterns of colour. The change to the colours of Autumn developed into another series of scenes. To obtain the depth of the woods and the autumn leaves in the tree branches I use layers of silk paper and stitch so the viewer can imagine looking through the branches and see the enormous variety of colour.
Lock Down gave me the time to experiment. Joining www.textileartists.org opened up the oppotunity to try different textile/embroidery tectniques and have the time to "play". Workshops were offered and I embraced them all. I made many hand stitched pieces and enjoyed the therapy of 'slow stitching'. I've carried on as a member of the web site and joined the Stitch Club with their fortnightly workshops. I chose ones that interest me, mainly requiring machine stitching, to still experiment and develop new work.
Layering, edges and texture are evident in nearly all of my work. I tend not to put a mount round my picture so that the edges are free to carry on in the viewers imagination.
My latest work has taken me into collecting and working with vintage fabric. I either piece and hand embroider different fabrics together or use it as a background fabric, print on it or 'eco dye' with rust and tea. It has become the inspiration for my work on wild animals. I would like the viewer to find something new each time they look at the work and the complexity of the delicate fabrics that are layered. Black free motion stitching emphasises the leathery skin of some animals.
It's exciting to always thinking about exploring the magic of textiles and embroidery and I wonder where my experimentation will take me next?
I have been a member of the Society of Designer craftsmen for many years now and have exhibited with them in London galleries.
After Lock Down I joined Skylark Galleries on the South Bank. This is a co operative gallery where we all share the running of the gallery. My work is always on sale there
The website also has a gallery of my work for sale.
My sceneic pictures often evoke memories for people and if you would like to commission a special scenic memory do get in touch to discuss it.
