About
“The inspiration for my art comes from the arrangement of colors and space in natural scenes.”
Hi, I’m Heidi,
I’m an artist specialising in large-scale paintings and wall hangings. My paintings are about contrast: the assumed beauty of flowers set against mysterious, sometimes sinister backgrounds. Using minimal colour, I rely on the texture of brushstrokes to convey a hint of the story.
As a textile artist, I am known for my bold and innovative large-scale wall hangings, some up to 30 feet tall, which are displayed globally in art galleries, public spaces, and corporate buildings. On a more personal scale, I weave fine silk scarves that are wearable works of art, designed to bring the beauty of my art into your everyday life.
The inspiration for my art comes from the arrangement of colours and space in natural scenes. Whether woven with silk or metal wire, every piece I create is a unique and signed work of art.
My interest in landscape and nature have helped to create my style of weaving.
My wall hangings are designed to influence and to be influenced by the scale and positioning of their surroundings, and use abstract textures and patterns to create spatial relationships, drawing the viewer in.
I am interested in weaving as a problem-solving process. I often start with an underlying structural idea for a wall hanging, and then work out how it can happen as a woven piece.
Over the years my work, which is based on Ikat and dip-dyeing, has become more and more layered, with inlay and supplementary wefts. When I started adding inlays I found myself intrigued by images that overlapped – that were both under and on top of other images.
I use wire in my wallhangings, using it to extend the texture of the piece, and allowing three dimensional sculptural possibilities. Depending on the weight of the wire used and the amount that it is annealed, the piece will either crinkle or spring into a snake-like coil as with The Swirl; or it might just lie there waiting politely to be shaped.
I studied Landscape Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design, USA, before going on to run nature education programmes, including some on television and began weaving in 1977, quickly establishing my reputation. I moved to England in 1981, basing my studio near Cambridge.
I am a Fellow of the Society of Designer Craftsmen and was Chairman for two terms. I have been President of the Cambridge Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, and later, Chairman of the Guild. I was a Member of the former Cambridge Society of Painters and Sculptors, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and am on the Crafts Council Index of Selected Makers.
I curated the Society of Designer Crafts Exhibition, Designer Crafts at the Mall, in London for 21 years and retired from that position after the exhibition in 2011.