Textile in my paintings

In the late 1980s I consciously started to use buttons, threads, pieces of fabric or large pieces of cloth in my paintings. I am familiar with textiles and haberdashery from my early home life; sewing with clothes, curtains, etc was central to female bonding within the family in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Grandma, mother, sisters and nieces, they were all involved. And I too, as a six-year-old girl, was already sewing borders on the machine! For me as a painter it has always formed a natural combination: paint and textiles. Working with textiles quickly took on a warm and personal meaning. For far too long this has been labelled ‘women’s art’. Since 2021 textile has taken the leading work.