Amy Jones creates artworks with her needle and thread
Threads of cotton may not seem like much on their own, but when this artist puts them onto her artworks they become something special – both for those who admire her work, and for herself.
Hello, who are you?
I’m an artist based in Sydney, Australia. I work primarily with textiles, but I also paint and draw. I also design colouring pages, embroidery kits, and teach embroidery workshops.
When did you start stitch art?
I made my first cross stitch when I decorated a skirt for my favourite toy rabbit when I was eight. I used to sit and stitch with my mother, who made a lot of tapestries and was quite a good seamstress. I’ve been stitching on and off ever since.
I started stitching more frequently when I made a stitched portrait of my son about seven years ago. I’d been drawing a lot, and thought I’d try to do it in thread as a challenge. It’s a picture of him sleeping, surrounded by images from his dreams, and I still add little things to it every now and again. Around this time, I also started making fabric birds from vintage silk, and had an exhibition with huge paintings of trees, with hundreds of birds hanging everywhere. I then started experimenting with adding stitching to my paintings, and now it is the core part of my artistic practice.
I love your piece called ‘All the flowers sing’ made from repurposed materials. Can you share a bit about creating this piece?
I was given a piece of heavy unprimed linen by my local art shop. It had such beautiful texture, and I really wanted to stitch on it. I started using leftover threads and just experimenting, because I wasn’t sure it would work as a surface for embroidery. I have a lot of vintage silk scraps left over from all of the birds I’ve made, so I added little pieces here and there. Friends often give me thread, beads and sequins they don’t need, so I added those as well. There’s also beads and sequins from some of my daughter’s old clothes and bracelets. I really like the idea of making something beautiful from things that would otherwise be thrown away.
I spent a lot of 2020 very sick with endometriosis, and this was the piece I turned to for escape. I wanted to distract myself with bright and happy colours, and keep the stitches playful. It was stitched with very little planning – I just did whatever I felt like on the day, so there’s lots of experiments.
‘All the flowers sing’
What do you enjoy most about textile art?
I enjoy stitching, because I like the historical connection it gives me to the women in my family, and I find the repetition of embroidery soothing. I love the different textures you can create, and the tactile nature of the materials. It’s also a very convenient art form as a mother, as I can easily pick it up and pack it away as needed. It’s very portable!
Is there a story behind the name ‘Amy’s Grandpa Cat’?
“Grandpa Cat” was the name that my niece gave my father, as he lived with a very grumpy old brown Burmese cat. When I first went back to university to study fine arts at 25, my dad was a big supporter. He asked for one of my paintings, had it framed, and gave it back to me to hang on my wall, as a reminder that my work was worth continuing with. After dad died, his cat came to live with me. I set up my business not long after the grumpy cat also died, so the name “Grandpa Cat” is an homage to both of them.
How long do your pieces usually take to make?
I usually work on quite a few pieces at once, so it’s hard to know exactly how long they take. I worked on “all the flowers sing” for about a year, but I also made about 50 other pieces during that period. My small amulets usually take about a day, and I make those when I need the immediate gratification of finishing something quickly. I’m currently working on two different series, one is of women in botanical settings, and the other is more abstract. I would estimate each piece is taking about one to two weeks of full-time stitching.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
It’s really gratifying to see fibre arts beginning to take their place amongst more elevated art forms like painting. I’m always happy to share tips and tricks with other stitchers, because I love seeing all the different ways people create with textiles.
Sydney, Australia
