About — Kate Tarling

Contacts:

call - 07929 643377

The texture of embroidery is what really appeals to me about this art medium. My favourite thing to do when I’ve finished a piece of work is to run my hands over the stitching and close my eyes. It’s such a pleasing sensation of soft ridges and sharp curves. It’s soft and undulating and yet durable and robust at the same time.

I learnt hand embroidery as a child after finding my mother’s wallet of embroidery threads. I was immediately seduced by the range of colours and impatiently wanted to learn the many different stitches, teaching myself by working through a little handbook of embroidery techniques. More recently I have come to love the speed and freedom that freehand machine embroidery offers. It’s opened up a whole new world of textile excitement! It allows me to use the needle like a pencil, except the needle is static and it’s the canvas that I move, allowing the thread to draw the shapes and lines. Of course I still have to frequently change the top thread and bobbin colours so it’s still a slow process and each piece of work takes many days and sometimes weeks to complete.

Working this way has broadened my outlook on the medium and now I mix up paint, print, machine and hand embroidery to create my pieces. I also use pieces of hand painted silk to embellish my work which adds texture and reflective light.

I’m a self-taught artist and although in hindsight I would have loved to have studied textiles, instead I studied geography and went on to train and work as a newspaper journalist. I like to think now that my textile work reflects my early career - my maps are all about a sense of place and stitching memories into a landscape. I love sewing in the connections we all make with our surroundings and creating a piece of art that has meaning. Most of the maps I make are commissioned and now I make maps of places from all around the world including Europe, Australia, North America and one piece has even flown into Space!

I also sell some of my work from a gallery called Fig in Bristol where I have lived for the past 20 years. The gallery is run as a co-operative and I share the space and responsibilities with four other very talented artists who offer support and make the life of a self-employed artist less lonely.

I make all my pieces in a shared studio at the bottom of the garden. It’s probably better to describe it as a heated shed, but at least I can store all my equipment in one place. My husband has one end of the shed, and I get the other (neater) side. I’ve got a lovely view of our courtyard garden and a huge skylight through which I can see the waving boughs of next door’s pear tree.

Sometimes I choose to work in the kitchen as we’ve got a big table where I can spread out larger pieces of work more easily, (and I have access to the coffee pot).

I’m a mum of two teenagers which is wonderful/stressful/magical/tearful. We’ve also got a dog - a whippet called Blue, who forces me to get outside every day and lose myself for a while.

I love to work to commission. If you would like a portrait made or a map stitched of somewhere personal to you, please get in touch.