Lazy Daisies, Eden Project (2003) (photo: Brenda Miller)

Having always stitched and knitted since childhood, my passion for textiles expanded when I started on a part time creative embroidery course, then a Creative Arts degree at Bath Spa in the 1990s. In part this was to satisfy my need to make, and I began to exhibit experimental embroidery.

My interests gradually moved towards a more collaborative practice and a more dialogical practice began to emerge, defined by Suzi Gablik as art which explores the relationship between the observer and the observed, “letting the audience intersect with, and even form part of the process” (1992: 150).

Lazy Daisies, my first collaborative 18 piece, was exhibited as an installation of ten thousand hand embroidered flowers. This work was shown in a variety of locations including the Eden Project (2003 - pictured above), at Fresh Air Sculpture (2004) and at Under-the-Edge Arts (2005 - pictured below). Contributions were made by people aged four to ninety-four years, and printed flowers were stitched by visitors and added during some of the events.