[Hugo Burge Foundation Residency 2025]

In the summer of 2025, I spent a month on the Marchmont Estate in the Scottish Borders thanks to the Hugo Burge Foundation’s Lou Gardiner Embroidery Residency. The Estate was inspiring twice over, being surrounded both by other amazing artists and makers and by an abundance of nature, in the Estate’s beautiful walled garden and the walks by streams and woods. The images below show parts of the estate, the workshop I held as part of the residency, and the many seedheads, grasses, flowers and other kinds of organic material I foraged there. I created two pieces during the residency, pictured at the bottom - Borderings, and Branchscape: Marchmont - both created by weaving and stitching natural materials from the Marchmont estate to tulle fabric. I still have in my studio many of the materials I foraged, so Marchmont will continue to be part of my bio-tapestries in the future.