Terra Nova

The Story of the Beetroot

Terra Nova means new ground. New ground for me had been lying fallow for coming up sixty years. Quietly enriching itself with the cast off ends of stories and sketches, stashes of threads and fabrics, talismanic thimbles, bright needles and bird-beaked scissors.

When I came across the work of Yuko Kurihara, I was immediately inspired to respond to it in embroidery. It was the texture that did it. What I could not achieve to my satisfaction in oils or acrylics, I knew I could manage in fabric and stitch. I did it for sheer pleasure. Joy, really.

Growing out of terra nova, Ruby Root opened a whole new field of enquiry for me. I love interrogating the boundaries of vision and craft, exploring what can be made in reflection of the beauty I observe all around me, the magical reality of the natural world.

As Rumi says, ‘There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.’ This is mine.