Gemma makes mark with embroidery
AN embroidery artist who stitches whimsical scenes inspired by classic literature, fairytales and the natural world said she wants to broaden people’s perception of what art is.
Gemma Matthews, a mother of four from Nottingham, stitches colourful scenes with figures such as King Arthur and Guinevere, Juliet from Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet, and Elizabeth Bennet from Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice, as well as figures from her imagination.
She began embroidering in 2018 on scraps of denim left over from her children’s clothes and finds that embroidery is a form of “escapism” for her.
Ms Matthews has created just under 90 large embroideries and about 50 smaller ones, which she shares with her combined 45,000 followers across Instagram and X under the name The Sewing Songbird.
She explained: “I have four children and I used to cut off jeans to make shorts because they put holes in everything and I used to have bits of denim lying around me.
“One day I just thought, ‘ I’m going to doodle on this with a bit of thread for fun’ and I obviously got the hook for it.
“It evolved over time and got bigger and bigger and more complicated.”
Among her earliest and favourite works is Lady Ethereal, which shows a blonde woman with flowers in her hair, wearing a light purple gown and walking through a wood.
Ms Matthews said: “That one pulls on my heartstrings a bit because that was the first time I thought actually, I could be an artist, this is my thing.”
Ms Matthews found that she could easily fit embroidery around her life as a mother of four children, and it helped her “de- stress” as she was coping with her father’s illness.
“I had lots of time sitting in waiting rooms, with my daughter dancing and taking children to football training or events, so embroidery was something I could easily take around with me,” she said.
“During Covid my dad was diagnosed with cancer just at the beginning, so he spent nearly all of two years or so in hospital and it was really difficult because we couldn’t see him because of rules.
“It was a really difficult time and although I was homeeducating the children as well, I lost myself more into the embroidery.
“I spent more time then on it because it was something that I could escape into and kind of distance myself from all the other stuff that was going on.”
As for the future, Ms Matthews said: “My main goal for the future is to get my exhibition up and running.
“I know a lot of people are waiting to view them up close because embroidery changes with light, and up close is different to a photograph, so it would be nice for people to come and have a view of some of the pieces.”