Textile Artist Alison Corfield

I fell into conversation with Alison Corfield whilst visiting Kirkcudbright last month (click here to see my post about the visit).  My attention was caught by this beautiful piece of work in her home:

It is a machine-embroidered piece set around a large tubular clear glass vase which is placed in a window, so the light coming in illuminates it. There are echoes between the piece and the landscape beyond:

I enquired about the piece and discovered that Alison herself had made it. She describes herself as an embroiderer and mixed-media textile artist. Like me, she had come in to a new experience of embroidery via a City & Guilds Embroidery course and she is now a full-time maker.  She told me that she sells everything that she can make and is working to capacity – quite an achievement!

Later in the day I went to the Art Gallery at the Mill on the Fleet at Gatehouse of Fleet in order to take a look at some more of Alison’s work. There was another example of a semi-transparent vessel in front of a window in the gallery:

Alison makes pictures, like this one, entitled ‘Lace’ which makes use of antique lace and includes machine embroidery and dyes:

And this one, entitled  ‘The Lochan’ which includes paper, fabric, dyes and free-machine embroidery:

A sumptuous collection of notebooks with richly embroidered covers was on offer:

In the same rich jewel colours,there were these pretty floral brooches:

And finally, some unusual pendants which included embroidery within.

Permission was granted by the artist and the gallery to include photographs of Alison Corfield’s work in this blog post.  You can see more of Alison’s work here.

The Art Gallery is well worth a visit if you are in Dumfries and Galloway. It is situated in a water mill which was built in 1788 , and today you can still see the water wheel which once powered the machinery that spun cotton. You can find out more about the mill here. Next to the gallery is a cafe serving delicious food and above it is a large second-hand bookshop. We were there on a hot sunny day and enjoyed salads on the terrace to the accompaniment of the sound of the river flowing by.  See these photos here to get the idea!

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