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Michelle Holmes

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Michelle trained in Embroidered Textiles at Loughborough University and works from her rural studio at The Ferrers Centre for Arts and Crafts, in Staunton Harold on the Leicestershire/Derbyshire border. She exhibits her embroideries from her studio and in a number of galleries in the UK in solo and group exhibitions.

Michelle's creative practice is rooted in her love for nature, anthropology and spirituality. She keeps sketch books; drawing directly from what she sees around her- trees, hedges, birds, deer, sheep, the changing seasons, buildings and people.

Michelle works by repurposing old fabrics, full of memories, to capture a new idea or thought or emotion in a fabric collage. She likes to explore the reflective and tactile qualities of natural fibres, silk, linen, wool and cotton. The stitching is a mixture of free machine embroidery made on a domestic sewing machine and hand stitching.

Lately, Michelle has created embroideries inspired by spiritual and religious figures and iconography culminating in a exhibition at Launde Abbey (Leicestershire) for its 900th anniversary in 2019.

Influences include: Boro textiles, folk art, seventeenth century English embroidery, samplers, the paintings of Mary Newcombe and Samuel Palmer, folk tales, maps, medieval carvings.

Michelle's work is held in private and public collections. She has been exhibited extensively throughout the UK, Europe, Taiwan and the USA. Early in her career she won the Best New Exhibitor Prize at the prestigious Chelsea Craft Fair and the Carroll Foundation Award. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including the cover of 'Embroidery' Magazine and in Nina Edwards' book, 'On the Button'. She has undertaken a wide range of commissions including pieces for Nieman Marcus, Habitat, P&O Cruise Ships and the Enjoy England Excellence Awards.

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