"As a multi-disciplinary textile artist with a grounding in stitch, I disrupt pattern and colour through process, ‘hybrid-ing’ textile thinking through material exploration. Patchwork is my methodology for making: I take apart and re-piece, through fabric compositions and collage to make textiles, prints and performative pieces. Drawn to the simplicity of grids, and stripes, I develop experimental sampling built around a live studio practice. Exploring the nuances and interaction of colour is an integral component, found in intuitive combinations of fabric and pattern. Integrating weaving and embroidery, I re-think the fundamental principles of textiles to consider where visual impact meets sculptural form. I am interested in how textile sits between 2D and 3D, exploring activation of fabric across body and space.
Collaborating across disciplines allows me to consider how textiles can be a means of translation; able to communicate movement or emphasise form. I am excited by the research and development stage of my practice, mirrored in the experimental and playful work I make. As an educator I am driven by the creative environment studios provide. Developing and facilitating art and design education through workshops, lectures, and design of course curricula is central to my practice; I would not be the artist I am today, were it not for my extensive teaching experience."
Amy Tidmarsh is a multidisciplinary textile designer, maker, and educator driven by an inventive approach to hand-based textile skills. By combining intuitive ways of working with an in-depth focus on practice-based research, she explores ideas centred around craft, process, and performative textiles.
In 2021 she was awarded The Textile Society Critical Writing Open Award for her research paper ‘To Instruct’. She has presented her research at the Performing Scores / Scoring Performance conference held in Manchester in 2023, and at the International Foundation Educators Symposium in 2021. She graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a BA (Hons) in Embroidery in 2012, and an MA in Textile Design from the Royal College of Art in 2021. In 2016 she completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Education, specialising in Further Education at Huddersfield University.
Amy is a lecturer, teaching Art and Design, specifically Fashion and Textile Design, across Further and Higher Education for the past 13 years. Institutions where Amy has taught include Leeds Arts University, Manchester Metropolitan University, Nottingham Trent University, and the Open College of the Arts. Delivering lectures, workshops and projects is at the core of Amy’s teaching practice, and she is passionate about designing engaging and inquisitive educational experiences, often centring around textile understanding, materiality, and playful approaches to colour. She is currently based between Utrecht, The Netherlands, and Manchester, UK.
We welcome Amy to the studio as our April WIP resident!
You can visit her studio on Sundays from 2pm to 5pm.
Textile Arts Center’s Work in Progress (TAC WIP) is a window into the studio practice of contemporary artists and designers that engages the public in a dialogue with the field of textiles.