Sadly, she passed away when I was 5, but my mum carried on making clothes and things for my brother and me, mainly out of necessity, rather than enjoyment.Īlthough I am the only trained professional artist in my immediate family, I think it fair to say there was plenty of creativity around me whilst I grew up. If I was good, I was allowed to play with her sewing box, in particular her button tin. She would sew and knit for hours making her own clothes and things for all the family. She looked after me for a period when my mum was poorly in hospital. I guess you could argue I gained a lot of my creative passion from my nan (mum’s mum), who was a skilled seamstress, knitter, and generally creative person. I continued to develop my passion for collecting oddities and storytelling, I also started to record and express myself by drawing the wildlife and stitching gifts for my mum. It was much more isolated, and I had much more space to explore, fields, hedgerows, ponds, and woodlands, all had to be discovered. I still do this today as I collect discarded things from the River Wye and when I have the chance, I visit London and the River Thames as I am a licensed amateur mudlark.Īs an older child I would spend more time doing this when the family moved to the farm. I would love to make up stories about the people who lived in the house before my family and the things they had lost or discarded. I found broken, discarded jewellery, pottery, bottles and even a metal token with the name ‘William’ stamped into it, which 35years on I still have in my collection! It was during this time that I started to develop my love of curiosities and their connected tales. Even as a young child I had a keen eye for broken treasures. The cottage was black and white with an old tumble-down wheelright’s shed at the bottom of the garden, with an old Victorian dump that spilled out into the ditch here I would spend time digging around in the dirt. This meant we learnt to be creative and appreciate the small things. They did not have a lot of money, so everything was second hand, made from scratch or grown at home. My earliest memories of living rurally were mostly spent outside exploring the old orchard, ditches and nooks and crannies of the old cottage my parents were renovating. Firstly, in a place close to the Welsh Borders and in my later childhood on a small arable and mixed-stock farm. I grew up and still live-in rural Herefordshire. Leslie: How did your early life point towards the creative person you are today?Ĭheryl: My early life has had a huge impact on my creative identity to date. My most recent work has used doll like sculptures to focus on themes of memory, absence and childhood experience.”
In Part 1 Cheryl talks about childhood, her use of natural materials and processes, and her ‘Mourning Dolls’ and ‘Mourning Vessels’.Ĭheryl says about herself: “I employ hand stitching, eco dyeing, reclaimed and found materials to create tangible, often quiet textile forms as metaphors.
I interviewed Cheryl Hewitt about her mixed-media and stitch art inspired by nature and the discarded objects she collects.