Maggie

Maggie uses natural dyes and pigments combined with print making and hand stitch to assemble textile works and paper based pieces.

Open Studio

ABOUT

After graduating with a first class degree in Fine Art Maggie created a series of art films that reflected a fascination with traces of past memories, uncovering hidden stories and meaning. Over the past four years she has been combining a passion for the natural world and a love of mark making using photography and film as a research tool to produce a body of fragile fabric based pieces.

Beginning with reclaimed linen or organic silk she investigates different ways of naturally colouring and marking the surface.

Work

Botanical Bricolage is a natural dye and print studio where you can buy Maggie's artwork made via the slow design process.

You can also experience bespoke tuition with Maggie and learn about natural dying and printmaking methods amongst a range of skill areas, with an emphasis upon sustainable and eco friendly approaches.

If you clicked on The Botanical Alchemy Cupboard above then you'll already know that there will be clothing for sale and a bespoke natural dye service service available soon.

The studio will be expanding in June 2019.

There will be a regular programme of workshops and courses based from the studio and taught by Maggie.

Experimentation and recording in visual journals and sketchbooks, with layers of marks and experiments, Maggie explores the repetition and juxtaposition of images to convey a sense of story or a journey. The larger, final body of work is subtly imbued with the memory of that process.

Botanical Alchemy prints are the result of experimentation over months. They are the discarded tissues sheets that are placed underneath the hand dyed silk that were printed upon. Normally they are tossed onto the studio floor, swept up and thrown away. These remnants are hand stitched on to naturally dyed linen.

Smudges of indigo ink and dust marks them. Having collected seeds in wild and personally important places Maggie had grown the plants in her tiny garden. At the end of high summer, as they were about to shed seeds, they were pulled up and the soil washed from their roots. Then they were photographed and screen printed.

' I used to make films from the discarded edits of other more scripted ones I had made. That has always been my process. Stories behind stories. The Botanical Alchemy Series continues that process in a more tactile way.'

Click on a gallery image to find the Botanical Bricolage website