Pendragan Art Studio

‘Saving Graces’ are three works in praise of healing plants, so I wanted to be sure that anyone looking at the embroideries would be able to clearly identify each plant, and perhaps go on to investigate its healing properties. It was trickier than it might seem. Should I print a list? Write on the back of the pictures? Leave it to chance?

In the end, I decided to create little plant guides for each work. They comprise coloured pencil sketches of each plant on lovely soft khadi paper, with their common and Latin names inscribed in green ink. I have saddle stitched the pages together and bound the booklets in bronze silk, beaded and hand embroidered in the style of the framed pieces themselves. There is no glue, only paper, card, silk, threads, beads and pencil.

The framer has made a beautiful job of creating the light oak frames as velvet lined cases for each piece and last week, I delivered all three to Delamore Arts, where the show will open on 1st May.