In this interview Valerie learns about Kate’s love of the scientific and her use of interesting materials, not always associated with textile art, such as fibre optics.
More About Kate Findlay:
I am a teacher and textile artist living in Reading, Berkshire, UK. I teach part time, and devote as much of the rest of my time as possible to making new art work.
Four years ago I saw a newspaper article about the Large Hadron Collider run by CERN in Switzerland. The images with the article resonated with me, and I started a body of work that I am passionately interested in developing. I trained in textiles I have only recently come back to it, and I am using textiles now as my principle medium.
I am interested in the contemporary textiles scene, and belong to a contemporary quilt group. I am pushing the boundaries of what I do, both in terms of scale – making progressively larger works, and technique, where I am revisiting some classic quilt construction techniques to achieve my aims, but combining this with more unusual materials like wire, fibre optics and laminated plastic. What I hope to achieve is a series of spectacular jewel like wall pieces that draw the viewer in, to linger over the complexity of the surface, and perhaps ponder on the vastness of scale, from the infinite of space, to the infinitesimal of the smallest parts of atoms being studied by the scientists at CERN.
Large Hadron Collider:
‘I have used silks and synthetics which reflect the light and give a metallic quality to my quilt.’
Learn more about Kate at her website or to contact her for talks and workshops visit: https://art.findlays.net.

Click here to learn more about Kate Findlay.