Cas Holmes - Embroidering the Everyday: Found, Stitch and Paint

Pied Wagtail: Pani Kekkavva(detail)
64 x 164 x 0.5cm (25 x 65 x in)

The image is printed onto a sheer organza using blue and black oil paint retrieved from a bin. This has been laid over the background, allowing the colours of the cloth to show through. See for the whole piece.

Here are worlds intricately drawn from life, a world made small by close observation. Just as a toddler takes an hour to walk three steps, delighting in each insect, every ripple in a puddle, tightening our focus can be an ongoing exercise in mindful contemplation. Drawing our gaze closer isnt always by choice. Sometimes circumstances changed by all manner of things lead us to engage more intimately with our immediate surroundings, but the art we make can be enriched by it, as these pages demonstrate in glorious detail.

A welcome shaft of sunlight breaking through relentless cloud, illuminating our morning coffee cup, can transform our mood in an instant. The richness of texture in a ripe strawberry tumbling from our shopping bag can make us yearn to render it in stitch. Cas Holmess daily life is symbiotically entwined with her work. Using oil paint rescued from a bin, she contemplates her sign-writer fathers skilled work with the same material. Producing work from materials discovered almost by osmosis in my everyday life she describes this with characteristic lightness of touch as a kind of mundane magic. Depicting, in painterly thread sketches, highlights from the natural world she bicycles through, or a cavalcade of neighbourhood cats pausing in her garden, this essentially nomadic soul finds comfort, delight and inspiration in the everyday, translating it with refreshing immediacy into textile art.

A bag of flour made extra precious by an unexpected food shortage kick starts a stitched musing with an integral pun to cheer in the face of adversity in Where Has All the Flour Gone?An innate acceptance and even celebration of lifes imperfections is apparent throughout Cass approach. Asymmetry is where she lives. Edges are left raw, lines are drawn with refreshing spontaneity.

This is no stylistic affectation, but an authentic representation of how Cas lives and works. Using what is around her, what comes to hand, inspired by her environment, Cas is as likely to print using the biscuit shes been given, as she is to draw it or enjoy it with the cup of tea (which, in turn, yields a tea bag she will later use to dye the pages of her sketchbook). Inspiration for Cas really is all around, even if shes going no further than her kitchen table.

Growing up, Cas walked for hours with her family, immersed in nature. That appreciation of her surroundings percolates through the years, through the generations, and into her work. A sunshine-yellow piece subconsciously references the mustard synonymous with her home city of Norwich, and depicts the plant golden rod that grew abundantly in the woods and heathland where she walked.

A pot-bellied kettle remembered from childhood is re-imagined in textile, speaking of Cass Romany heritage and re-igniting warm memories of tea with her grandmother. Facilitating and giving talks all over the world, Cass clearly inherited wanderlust finds expression in the pied wagtail. Also known as the gypsy bird, it is at home on the roads like Cas, it is happy in town and country alike.

Everyday life is a perennial source of imagery and narrative for the camera clicking away in Cass minds eye. A magpie in the truest sense, she sees all, considers deeply, saves much, uses carefully. Her output is prolific and profound. In her hands, the prosaic is made poetic.

In this book, you will find not only inspirational examples of Cass work, her thoughts behind the process, and practical advice on how to relate this to your own creative explorations, but also her handpicked selection of pieces from other artists who place the everyday at the heart of their work.

Portrait In Great-Grandmothers Shadow
33 x 46cm (13 x 18in)

I have machine and hand stitched a self portrait using sheer cloth and paper over a printed portrait of my great-grandmother. This has been partially cut and torn away so that her face can be seen showing through. A stop-motion short film of this process can be viewed via the QR code.