16th March 2023

'A layered story'  presentation by Suzette Smart

 

Suzette has always stitched and created starting at a young age, using kits, weaving , sewing etc and this is what she always wanted to do. She did a B Tech in Art and Design which involved collage and wire and then went on to a degree in Fashion and Textile design.

Whilst her children were young Suzette bought a machine which she used for free embroidery, creating stories and thread pictures (no fabric used). This constrained the size of her pieces of work so she included fabric, this has also involved repurposing of pieces of existing work into her new work through the process of collage.

 
Piece created for Exhibition in 2016 - used a vintage dress as the base /foundation which Suzette cut up and re put together - it is based on a map of where she lives with journeys depicted in thread.

For this Suzette used a dress that she had as a child as a template and then included ideas from nature. She uses pieces of fabric with memories, paint, mixed media to recreate the dress shape and decorates it with birds, flowers, fruits and words.

This was inspired from the garden during the 'lockdown' period, with the darker flowers reflecting the mood. The background was created using fabric crayons for the rubbings with the story being told in the top layers (flowers/words etc)

This piece is worked on a old tablecloth and features hexagons, windows, (open fabric to reveal image) animals which are created through stitch and then applied and images transfered onto fabric which is cut up and collaged onto the background.