Books
Together with Needle and Thread: Legacies of Louisa Pesel (editor) (2023) Hive Bradford, Bradford MDC PDF
Resilient Stitch: Wellbeing and Connection in Textile Art, London: Batsford (2021) 4th reprint
Mr Gatty’s Experiment Shed, 2019, Arts Council England/British Textile Biennial PDF
Worn Stories: Material and Memory in Bradford 1880-2015 (editor, with Jennie Kiff) 2019, National Lottery Heritage Fund and Hive Bradford PDF
Lasting Impressions (with Hannah Lamb), 2018. Bradford: Stitch, Print, Weave Press
Slow Stitch: Mindful and Contemplative Textile Art, London: Batsford (2015) 14th reprint
Dyers’ Field, 2015 PDF
The Fabric of Bradford, 2013, Hive, Heritage Lottery Fund
Out There, 2011, Hive, Mind/Big Lottery Fund
Selected essays and journalism
Write, Stitch, Unpick - In How The Life Gets In, NiTRO Creative Matters: Perspectives on creative arts in Higher Education, May 2024
Essay in - Request and Response - Conviviality and Reflexiveness - IAPSIS - The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, December 2021
The Cardigan - Pieced Work, December 2021
Resilient Stitch – Louisa Pesel and the Bradford Khaki Handicrafts Club – article in Selvedge Issue 102 ‘Mend’ August 2021
The Fabric of Resilience – article in Resurgence and Ecologist May June 2021
The Blue Shirt. Essay in The Art of Repair: Mindful Mending: How to stitch old things to new life Molly Martin, London: Short Books 2021
A Community Conversation essay in People, Place, Time and Space, Super Slow Way, 2020
Local Colour. Essay in Verhaal om de hoek: Cultureel erfgoed als instrument voor zorgzame buurten Bart De Nil (ed.) Brussels: Politeia, 2020
First Person: Local Colour (article), September 2019, Embroidery
A Stitch in Time… (article), Hole and Corner, Issue 19, 2019
Piecing it together: Finding ways in to Gawthorpe Textile Collection, in Significance, Manchester Metropolitan University, Gawthorpe Textile Collection 2016
Slow Colour, Community and Wellbeing, Journal for Spinners, Weavers and Dyers, 245, Spring 2013
Featured in:
Shedding the Shackles: Women’s empowerment through craft. Lynne Stein. 2021 London: Bloomsbury
Textiles in Lockdown, Ruth Singer, 2020, Gawthorpe Textile Collection
Poetic Cloth: Creating Meaning in Textile Art, Hannah Lamb, 2019, London: Batsford
Making a Life: Working by hand and discovering the life you were meant to live, Melanie Falick, 2019, New York: Artisan
Natural Processes in Textile Art, Alice Fox, 2015, London: Batsford
Textile Collage, Mandy Patullo, 2016, London: Batsford
Recent press
Crafts, interview, May June 2021
Embroidery Magazine Cover feature by June Hill: March/April 2021 issue
Sustainable Stitches, Selvedge Magazine, Issue 93 ‘Rethink’ March/April 2020
Embroidery Magazine Cover feature by Jo Hall: November/December 2016 issue
Mr X Stitch – Resilient Stitch review by Cas Holmes https://www.mrxstitch.com/resilient-stitch/
Podcasts / talks / radio
Common Threads: LOkesh Ghai and Claire Wellesley-Smith in Conversation, Making Meaning live gathering July 2022
Making Meaning podcast with Ruth Singer May 2022
Sew What podcast ‘Resilient Stitching: Then and Now’
Haptic and Hue podcast ‘A feeling of resilience’
Textiles in lockdown podcast - Gawthorpe Textile Collection and Ruth Singer
Fibrearts Take Two Australia - interview July 2021
Feedback Friday, Botanical Colours, presentation and interview July 2021
Academic
Researcher/ award holder: Textile Gardens for Community Heritage and Wellbeing – The Open University/ Santander Universities with Museum Dr Guislain, Ghent, Belgium and The University of Ghent 2022
Researcher: Creative Practice in the Anthropocene – University College London/The Open University 2021
Researcher: Creative Practice for Community Resilience in UK Coastal Regions at risk of Flooding – Open University 2021
Undergraduate module development work – Experimental Geographies – The Open University 2021
Conference work
Session chair ‘Thinking through making’ and review committee member, Cultural Heritage for Mental Health 2, Ghent, Museum Dr Ghislain, Iedereen Leest, Flemish Interface Centre for Cultural Heritage, postponed to 2022
The Mangle Press part of a panel discussion Collective, Community, Social textiles Textile and Place 2. MMU/Whitworth Gallery/British Textile Biennial October 2021 (peer reviewed)
The Red Bed: Slowness and dialogue in a community artist residency International Sociological Association Research Committee 21 on Urban and Regional Development, University of Antwerp, 14-16 July 2021 (peer reviewed)
Conversations through re-use and re-making in a contemporary ‘Economy Quilt’. Secondhand Cultures in Unsettled Times Symposium, Cardiff University 15-16th June 2021 (peer reviewed)
The Stitch Journal: Woven in Practice, University of Huddersfield (online) 23rd April 2021(peer reviewed)
The Mangle Press: Engaging and remembering with a site-specific history. AHRC Interdisciplinary Conference on “Form and Forgetting”, University of Cambridge, September 2020 (peer reviewed)
Local Colour. Association of Critical Heritage Studies 5th Biennial Conference (online) 26-29 August 2020 (peer reviewed)
Crafting Resilience: Textile heritage projects and wellbeing in post-industrial communities. Cultural Heritage for Mental Health, Ghent, Belgium, November 2018 (a blog post about this presentation here) (peer reviewed)
Worn Stories: Material and Memory in Bradford 1880-2015, Bradford Industrial Museum, November 2018
The Red Bed - Textile and Place - Manchester Metropolitan University, The Whitworth Gallery, April 2018 (peer reviewed)
Making Emerging Research Visible - Gawthorpe Textile Collection, July 2016
Local Colour: Community, Craft and Resilience - A Symposium on Damage and Repair, University of the Creative Arts, Farnham, March 2016 (Peer reviewed)
Fragments of intimacy: Exploring the commonplace through a dyer’s notebook. Infinite and Various, a symposium about Bradford Textile Archive, April 2014 (Peer reviewed)
Invited speaker
Making Meaning live, Common Threads with LOkesh Ghai, July 2022
Royal School of Needlework, Student Research Conference, May 2022, Keynote, Practice in Research
MAI-Day: Textile Elements Reflective Stitch-In, March 2022, Chelsea College of Art, London
Research Lab: On Archives and artist research - Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design, Sweden, February 2022
The Open University - Eco-Creativity 2021: Art, Music, Ritual and Global Climate Politics conference Creative Practice and the Anthropocene panellist, November 2021
Manchester Metropolitan University – Textiles in Practice – Sustainability session panellist, June 2021
Mind and Body sessions – Crafts Council, London – invited speaker, May 2021
Fashion and Textile Museum, London – in conversation about textiles and resilience, May 2021
IAPSIS, Swedish Arts Grants Committee – Request and Response: Conviviality and Reflexiveness – in conversation about my practice, May 2021
Jardinsanté (Jardins Santé à Bruxelles pour la promotion de la santé et la prévention des maladies) (Health gardens in Brussels for health promotion, disease prevention and city resilience) – Expert panel lecture and workshop November 2019
Art of Wellbeing Symposium, University of Central Lancashire – Panellist – Collaborating at the intersection of art and wellbeing, June 2019
Craft of Change – Chrysalis Arts, Selby Abbey, May 2019
Textiles heritage and wellbeing - Makers in Museums - Gawthorpe Textile Collection, June 2018
Textiles in communities / Stitching for wellbeing – University of Cumbria, December 2017
Repair Dialogues: A lecture about mending and repair Bradford School of Art, February 2016