Ailish Henderson

When I was a child growing up in war-torn Northern Ireland, my mother made the decision to create a calm amongst the storm. She decided to teach me herself rather than send me to a divided school. I look back on these early years with such fondness and appreciation for her very soul and self-sacrifice. Days were spent strictly adhering to all I would learn at school according to my grade, coupled with adventures at the Fairy Glen — a walk near my hometown where we entertained ourselves with leaf discovery days. Many of those leaves ended up coming home with me and then pressed between the pages of favourite books.

I was always the repairer. At 3 years old, this manifested via the insistence to stop and drop down on my chubby honkers, trying to mend all of the broken heads off flowers; no head got left on a pavement or sidewalk without me at least trying to, yes … make it better again. This is a trait I now admit has been a thread through my life course and, no, it’s not always been a positive.

A blessing and dually a curse; sometimes we forget to fix ourselves. We become the Humpty Dumptys — yet there is always a way back to repair, we just must acknowledge it’s there. For me personally, art became this fixing glue.

As I grew, family matters became all too important. We elected to leave the forest of green in Northern Ireland and relocate to Northern England, my mother’s birthplace. There, we nurtured her parents, who were ill. I was fully involved and spent many a day sitting next to my Narg (my pet name for my grandmother), begging her to tell me again the story which was ever repeated, Little Red Riding Hood. It occurred to me that I never received from her a variety of stories. Why the same tale? She was blind — no text could be read. Yet it was this that made it all the more special and instilled in me how to make up stories rather than always focus on what had already been said. She taught me imagination — which I would say is dually the greatest gift and the greatest curse. Many artists, I am sure, will echo this.

Getting back to the story, let’s speed on a few years to my college days. While studying fine art, one day quite by accident I was guided into textiles. With my fine arts teacher away due to illness, we were given an alternative. And yes, she was: A pixie with a magenta pink rinse, a nose stud and eclectic fashion… the main point to note here is that she was in fact a textiles tutor, but not the traditional sort. She knocked the windows out of my Elizabethan stay-at-home Jane Austen notions and embroidered a new narrative. She taught me how to write my own story in cloth form.

My Joan Miró-esque drawings soon gave way to a similar look on fabric: think cut-away applique. Monoprint drawings on paper soon became calico, and yes … I experienced bloody fingers from time to time, attempting to draw with my new pen — the needle.

Over the years, I will tell you now, no fortune has been gleaned. I’ve had highs and lows, random requests. I’ve served as editor, teacher (the title “therapist” should be added here), lecturer, writer, research practitioner, print designer … Now I can add author to the list, having had the joy of publishing my first title, Narrative Textiles, in October. Oh, and yes — I guess I am an artist. Would I have ever chosen an alternative path? It might have been easier, but I would be selling my soul.

My father’s mother was a watercolourist, studying at the highly revered Royal Academy of Arts in London. Coincidentally, I ended up commissioned by this very same place many years later to produce a drawing on silk, which became part of its permanent collection a few years ago.

In my view, teaching others is not simply the easiest way to earn a wage while still within the subject you love — it also results in the people I encounter, and the surprises each time I meet a new class and am used as the safe space, the person students can trust. I’ve cried with them, carefully and appropriately been there — without, of course, going too far. No, I was never a leave-your-work-at-the-office person. Would I want to be?

There is also a word I carry with me every day (my mum got it engraved on a gold wedding band for me years ago, in an effort keep it from coming out as a tattoo): kintsugi. It means: to repair the broken with gold — not a perfect fix, but rather a celebration of the narrative the break gives the piece. It survived, so do not hide it — but show it off to the world in a golden light!

I spent a summer padding the streets of Paris at 20. There I took many a selfie (before the selfie stick took over). I was not narcissistic; I became a study — one which I could have direct contact with. Drawings became collages, collages got stitched. As a perfectionist, I used this as a power: Having carefully kept all my travel documents, postcards and odd pick-ups from the trip, once home I embarked on the task of creating larger works with them. How could a chocolate wrapper become a nose? How could a piece of lace become the pupil of my eye? It did in my stitched narrative portrait Pistachio Smiles, which tells the story of my day spent under the Eiffel Tower in the rain — alone — where, hey, I could still buy a pistachio ice cream.

And there was also the lone Sunday market trip, where I allowed myself to be the tourist, capturing the quintessential French fancies, the Frenchmen with their stripes and moustaches and sated stomachs waving their artichokes as if they were the finest flower bouquet …

Create your own Stitched Narrative Portrait Collage

Materials

•  A table large enough to spread out your collage material and paints
• Reference photographs of your subject
• Handmade paper sheets (I like using khadi rag paper, which you can buy online and in art supply shops)
• Paper and fabric scraps for the collage
• Personal source material, such as travel memorabilia, tickets and bags, as well as tissue paper, lace or old clothing
• Non-waterproof fine-liner pen
• Small watercolour paintbrush
• Watercolour paints or dyes (such as Koh-i-Noor, available online and in art supply shops)
• A small container of water to use with your paints
• Scissors
• Gluestick
• Sewing needle and a few embroidery threads in your choice of colours

Optional

• „ Gilding wax, such as Treasure Gold, for adding metallic highlights

The Process
With all my tools near at hand, I begin by having a wealth of visual fuel surrounding the area I am working in. Let’s say, in this case, I am creating a self-portrait, a character based on me. I will have photographs to help me capture the emotion and the narrative, and what was behind my eyes on that day.

Using handmade paper or plain neutral fabric, I will gently draft a few shapes (pencil lines) to define what I want to show. Collage material will be added, and sometimes watercolour paint. I may make several variations to explore the message I wish to visually transport to the page. (I am not precious about media: I will use a glue stick on fabric and stitch at the same time. This is not a piece destined to be worn and need washing!)

I will endeavour to add meaningful treasures to the collage. For example, if I am working from a photo of a travel experience, I will add mementos I have brought home from the trip — even a soap or candy wrapper!

Stitched parts will be the last stage. Sometimes I stitch draw in the face lines; other times I will highlight an area of the face, such as blush on a cheek in embroidery.

There is no final outcome — it may be left as it is or continued. It’s the knowing where to stop that can be the hardest part. The focus, though, is to capture a moment in time, a memory, a part of our identity. There is no perfect — just be happy with it.

When you create your own narrative based stitched collage, you might find you choose a different source material. In my masterclasses, I see my students creating everything from a pet to Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice — it’s all good!