Catherine Hill: A Way with Words

Today we had a visit from Catherine Hill who gave a talk on her work and process. Absolutely fascinating. You can find her blog Arnold's Attic here and click for her Instagram

All the photos below are taken from the blog - much better quality than the ones I managed in our meeting hall!

Catherine is a multi-award-winning contemporary textile artist based in the UK.  Her work draws on childhood memories growing up in Lancashire in the 1970’s. Arnold’s Attic is named after a vintage textile collection she was gifted by an old family friend called Arnold. His family had worked in the Lancashire textile mills for generations. The collection had been stored in his attic. Catherine's family has long connections with the textile industry in Lancashire and with farming.

Her textile art has been exhibited across the UK, USA, Germany, Switzerland, Ukraine, Brazil, Bulgaria and Australia and has featured in books and many exhibitions.

One of Catherine's pieces is Time for Tea, inspired by domestic life at her grandparents’ home.

                                               

The 2024 Members’ project from the Embroiderers’ Guild was based around repair; Catherine's piece was work celebrating the patterns and variations of darning stitches on a vintage glass cloth.

Recipes feature too, this is Catherine's mum's famous Cheese & Onion Pie on a cheese grater and of course Lancashire Hotpot!

You will notice that red features a lot in Catherine's work; this is to represent the red rose of Lancashire. Writing also features heavily and Catherine has developed her own font style, writing in capitals and managing to fit words into her boxes perfectly, which we were all very impressed by.

This piece is Silk Addict it shares Catherine's love of vintage threads, particularly Sylko. The piece started as a collection of thoughts and grew into a poem. 

Other similar pieces are based on poems or Catherine's own thoughts such as recording her observations during lockdown.

Her interests also include eco-dyeing, felting and Dorset buttons. This piece is made up of tiny quarter inch hexagons, another lockdown project using hand-dyed fabrics scraps. The work was delayed by a certain husky who was less than helpful and well known for hiding things! 

I would encourage you to visit Arnold's Attic (links at the top of the page) to explore more of Catherine's work. We had a lovely afternoon learning about her inspiration and the process to produce the work.