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Wendy Greaves MSDC

Stitched & Constructed Textiles

About Wendy
Wendy’s textile art explores the textures, moods, and quiet rhythms of North Devon’s fragile landscapes. Guided by intuition and a deep connection to place, she works with natural fibres, mono printing, stitch, and solar dyeing to create layered, tactile surfaces. Her process is material-led and grounded in environmental awareness. Through making and teaching, she invites others to slow down, look closely, and reflect on the delicate balance of the natural world
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The landscapes of North Devon and Cornwall are breathtaking yet fragile, shaped over millennia by natural forces but increasingly threatened by erosion and human impact. Wendy’s textile practice moves beyond their visual splendour to explore the delicate balance these environments hold, a balance now shifting under the pressures of time.

Landscape is the heartbeat of her work, informing both concept and process. Rooted in a long tradition of artists engaging with nature, Wendy’s approach is deeply grounded in texture, materiality, and sensory experience. Her textile landscapes are not literal reproductions, but abstracted interpretations born from close observation of form, rhythm, and pattern. Through embroidery, felting, appliqué, mono printing, and mixed media, she creates layered, sculptural surfaces that evoke the tactile qualities of the land.

Wendy’s journey with landscape began in Cornwall with The Tides of Time (2002–03), inspired by a rockfall that revealed stunning rust-coloured stone. Though trained in woven textiles, she was drawn to the immediacy and freedom of machine stitching, and soon developed an obsession with collecting tiny fabric remnants and recycled materials that echo the colours, textures, and patterns found in nature. This material-led, multi-layered approach remains central to her practice.

Now based on the rugged North Devon coast (an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), Wendy finds continual inspiration in its dramatic cliffs, shifting tides, and intricate intertidal zones. The region’s geology, composed mainly of shale, slate, and sandstone, offers rich visual and tactile cues that translate beautifully into fabric. She employs natural wools, hand-painted muslin, chiffon, and calico to recreate ripple marks, fossil traces, and sediment layers. The liminal spaces between tides, alive with ecosystems and marked by traces of human presence, are a recurring focus.

By combining delicate hand stitching with dynamic machine embroidery, Wendy highlights contrasts within the landscape—soft sand against jagged rock, intricate coral beside washed-up debris. Her work blends embroidery, felting, embellishing, appliqué, mark-making, and mono printing, each piece shaped by the fragility of the materials and the fleeting moments they seek to capture.

At its core, Wendy’s work is both a celebration and a quiet warning, an invitation to pause, look closer, and recognize the vulnerability of these remarkable coastal ecosystems on the edge of survival.

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Employment

  • Teacher of Fine Art Textiles, Costume, Fashion & Painting - Oakham School 1991 -2022

Education

  • Leicester De Montfort University (BA hons Constructed Textiles): Sept 1987- May 1990
  • Leicester De Montfort University (PGCE) Education: Sept 1990 - June 1991


Memberships

  • Member of The Society of Designer Craftsmen
  • Full member at Appledore Crafts Company
  • Member of the Crafts Council directory
  • Member of Embroiderer’s Guild
  • Member of CrOW (creative older women)
  • Member of North Devon Arts
  • Member of Artmakers
  • Member of Devon Artist Network


Publications

  • Feature in Textile Fibre Forum Magazine June 2025
  • Unravelled Journeys – Wendy Greaves 2025
  • 101 Contemporary Artists 2023 Collect Artwork
  • Landscape 2023 Magazine – Collect Artwork

Exhibitions & Highlights

2025

  • The National Embroidery Awards (NEC)
  • Burton in Bideford Craft Gallery
  • Interview for Flourish-hub (online subscription site)
  • Appledore Crafts Company Gallery
  • Rosemoor RHS – The Wool & Fibre Weekend
  • Ilfracombe Art trail (open studio) and Xmas Fair
  • Delivering various workshops – group and individual at both my studio and other venues
  • Participation in the Embroiderers Guild Members project and challenge
  • Arlington Court
  • Natural Fibre & Heritage Craft festival – Coldharbour Mill
  • RLNI exhibition
  • Member of Artmakers – regular exhibitions
  • Mr X Stitch competition
  • Embroiderers Guild Members Challenge
  • Appledore book festival

2024

  • Ilfracombe Art Trail Open Studio
  • Delivery of several 1-1 and group workshops (2024- present)
  • Natural Fibre & Heritage Craft festival – Coldharbour Mill (3 weeks)
  • RNLI exhibition – Instow
  • Artmakers Upstairs exhibition
  • Appledore Book festival
  • Appledore Gallery Exhibition (1 Month)
  • Arlington Court (Artmakers) Exhibition
  • Burton in Bideford Open exhibition
  • Created - Contemporary & Heritage Crafts Festival

2023

  • Featured in an online exhibition via Curator Space.
  • Member of the Textile Art Organisation Stitch Club
  • Open studio (Ilfracombe Art Trail)
  • Member of Devon Artist Network (2023 – present)
  • Member of Artmakers (2023 – present)
  • Burton in Bideford Open exhibition
  • RLNI exhibition-Instow
  • Ilfracombe Art Trail
  • Devon Art Trail

2022

  • Celebration of my own explorations whilst teaching. “Unravelled Journeys” (Oakham School)
  • Large commission of Sennen Harbour
  • Short listed for the Royal Academy of Marine Artists exhibition
  • Burton at Bideford Open Exhibition
  • Moved to North Devon to focus on my own artwork
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