Amy Stevens
Amy Stevens is a Surrey based textile designer and maker whose work explores the wonder of our natural surroundings, fragile details and the interaction of colour and light. Amy blends traditional heritage techniques with experimental ideas and methods to capture fine details in her work utilising all the knowledge from her first-class Textile Design degree and close work with Heritage Mills. With an emphasis on creating beautiful things to enjoy, Amy is still learning and exploring within her craft, finding joy within her practice which she hopes can be absorbed by those who admire her work.
A Scrapbook of Memory is based on the collection of memories from Amy's childhood scrapbook that were mostly painted by her Great Granny throughout my childhood and collected by her mum. She wanted to recreate and capture her Great Grannys paintings and written letters and recreate them in her own style within weaving for the next generation of the family to enjoy. This became ‘A Scrapbook of Memory’ which was an exploration of techniques to form a scrapbook of abstract words, and pictorial prints within weave which tells a story of connection and Amy’s personal memories.
Hand painted breakdown prints are joined across the piece by black ‘floating’ lines resembling the written word in abstract form. The woven prints vary in their visibility; those that are strong and bold resemble vivid memories, in contrast to the fragmented prints which represent those disjointed memories that are harder to recall over time. Embroidery of phrases directly from her Great Granny’s letters help guide the narrative through the piece from top to bottom.
This project is an ode to her Great Granny’s creative past, a thank you to her family for their support and a woven story of the past.
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