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Sue Lancaster FSDC

Stitched & Constructed Textiles

About Sue
Sue Lancaster is known as a textile artist working in machine embroidery but her work starts well in advance of the production in stitch. All Sue's work starts with observational drawing and painting on paper in order to research her topic. Sue's pieces that are available for sale or commission are worked in free-machine drawing, often incorporating other textile processes. The surfaces that she creates may result in wall hung decorative panels as well as functional items such as bags. All works are completely designed and made by Sue in her Stitched Up and Fleeced Studio, Sheffield.
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Biography Back to top

Sue Lancaster draws, paints, dyes, prints, hand stitches, machine embroiders, makes textile artworks, accessories, soft furnishings and costume for performance. She is a rare animal these days because she has a BA Hons Degree in Embroidery.

The look of her work has changed considerably in her 48 years of practice but she has always expected to involve stitch, usually free-drawn machine stitch in her works for sale, exhibition or commission.

Sue researches a theme with observations on paper using a variety of media. Interpretations into textile processes follow, delving into her wide range of textile experiences. Some of the resulting works are quite realistic but she works on to develop a specific 'language' for each project, extracting a personal response and creating highly original pieces. Whether the piece is intended to be purely decorative or if it has a function Sue's concern is always to produce a high quality finish and to create works that are fit for purpose.

Since finding her own voice for her work in the mid nineteen eighties Sue has explored a personal response to her environment:-

  • Landscape - in the biggest sense of Distance; across fields, hills and mountains, and also Detail; the plants, the hedges and trees, the nature and the natural as well as the man-made, the structures, the walls, the gardens and allotments.
  • Seascape - attempting to capture mood, movement and the sense of air.


Sue is currently working on a theme that she has titled 'Growth', both as the growth of an idea and also in nature, as in how a plant structure develops as it grows. A current aspect to Sue's work is concerned with making use of her long-term stash of oddments, inherited haberdashery and a desire to move away from use of synthetic fabrics by using up what she already has and not purchasing any more in the future.

Resumé Back to top

Education:

  • 1971-2 Bolton College of Art, Foundation
  • 1972-75 Loughborough College of Art & Design, BA Hons Embroidered Textiles
  • 1976-77 Leicester School of Art Education, PGCE Art & Design
  • 1992-96 Mansfield College of Art (Part Time), Licentiateship of the Society of Designer Craftsmen (Distinction)

Awards:

  • 1989 British Quilt Festival, 1st Prize Machine Embroidered Artwork
  • 2001 Society of Designer Craftsmen, Membership
  • 2013 Society of Designer Craftsmen, Fellowship

Career:

  • 1977-84 Secondary School Art Teacher
  • 1985 - present Freelance Textile Artist
  • 1986-97 Supply Teacher
  • 1997-2006 Part Time Lecturer in Textiles at Mansfield College of Art, South Notts College and Chesterfield College
  • 2002-6 Member of Harding House Artists' Cooperative, Lincoln
  • 2005 - present Established Stitched Up and Fleeced Studio, Sheffield as a space to create and a place to teach, including City & Guilds Textile Courses (2007-2018)

Solo Exhibitions:

  • 2018/19 Bridlington Spa followed by Snape Maltings, Suffolk. 'See Sea'
  • 2020 Snape Malting, Suffolk. 'Take A Look’
  • 2021 Farfield Mill, Sedbergh and Snape Maltings
  • 2022 Quay Gallery, Snape Maltings, Suffolk
  • 2023 Haddon Hall Gatehouse, Derbyshire and Quay Gallery, Snape Maltings, Suffolk

Regular/Annual Events

  • Art in the Gardens, Botanical Gardens, Sheffield.
  • Quay Gallery Solo Exhibitions (mid July), Snape Maltings, Suffolk
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