Kate Buchanan
Kate Buchanan turns a love of nature, textiles and colour into art that stirs the imagination. She chats all things thread with CrossStitcher…
From her garden shed Kate Buchanan makes beautiful textile art, inspired by the British coast and countryside and popping up everywhere from gallery walls to greetings cards. She also runs Create – workshops which open up art, crafting and upcycling in a nurturing environment. She tells CrossStitcher about the pursuit of beauty – and a duck called Doris… It’s lovely to met you, Kate – please introduce yourself…
I live in Hertfordshire with my husband, children and four birds (three chickens and a duck called Doris). I am very fortunate to have a small studio in my garden which is where I work and run workshops. ‘The girls’ as they are affectionately termed are a great source of entertainment and quite often strike a pose worth catching in a picture, not to mention their kind addition of eggs to my breakfast!
What do you love about sewing?
It’s the sheer amount of choice and variety of colour and texture: it seems endless and so, I feel, are the creative possibilities – an endless stream of stitch and thread and colour which I can dip into to create my own creative story.
How did you begin to turn that passion into a business?
I have been on an interesting journey to get to where I am today. I began my working life as an occupational therapist, I was a teaching assistant in a reception class, I made bespoke silk handbags and now I make textile pictures and host creative workshops. All the stops along the way have added to who I am as an artist and I have built up skills in so many areas.
My first taste of sewing was in my home economics class making my little brother James a dressing gown. I taught myself ribbon embroidery from a book and felting on a day
course and I applied those new skills, along with my love of colour, to designing and creating silk purses and bags.
With the bags I dipped my toe into the commercial world of selling my art and I made and sold silk bags for a couple of years. I really enjoyed adding detail and embroidery to the bags until one day a friend suggested I made a picture using those same techniques. I had a play and found a whole new avenue to create in.
Can you tell us how you create one of your designs?
What inspires me to make a picture is probably my love of colour in nature; a colour combination will catch my eye and I will wonder if I can re-create it. This will give me a flicker of a thought and image idea and off I go with it, adding layers of watercolours, fabric and stitch. I finish by adding a sewn phrase or thought to add an additional meaning and depth to the piece.
What inspires your work?
Having spent the majority of my childhood and many of my adult holidays on the Devon and Dorset coast, the beaches and shoreline have almost become part of the fabric of my life and quite naturally appear in many of the images I make.
I’m also a big Pinterest fan. I can spend many an hour admiring how an artist can capture colour onto canvas or fabric. I do love the work of textile artist Janet Bolton. Her skill with needle turning is just so inspiring.
Can you tell us more about your Create workshops? They sound like a lot of fun!
Yes they are just that – fun and playful. They vary from four to five ladies in my workshop to 65 people in a village hall.
The principle is always the same – to provide a much-needed creative space in the midst of the busyness of everyday life. For all of us it allows us a little time to play with something arty or crafty, reminding us that we are all creative in one way or another.
For the larger Create sessions I enlist the help of my very talented friends and we offer a variety of art and textile opportunities, stitching, jewellery, painting and printing all under one roof.
Do you still enjoy sewing just for yourself?
Yes I love sewing, as more often than not, the stitching I do for myself opens up great ideas for my workshops.
My work is always evolving and moving. It doesn’t seem to stay in one field. It developed from using only textiles to adding an additional watercolour layer by using gessoed calico which lets you paint onto the fabric.
I feel like I am “in pursuit of beauty in the common life” as Japanese artist Makoto Fujimura talks about in his book Culture Care. I’ve not yet arrived at beauty but I am really enjoying the journey art is taking me on.
My work is always evolving and moving. It doesn’t seem to stay in one field