Maggie Scott – Meet the Artist

A little textile inspiration from my YouTube Collection. Today it features the colourful nuno felting by textile artist Maggie Scott.

Join Maggie Scott as she shares her beautiful work in the ‘Five Times More’ exhibition.

Maggie Scott:   https://maggiescottonline.com/

Artwork by Maggie Scott
Artwork by Maggie Scott
Artwork by Maggie Scott
Artwork by Maggie Scott

Five Times More exhibition

‘Five Times More’ depicts the intimate relationship between mother and child, reflecting on both personal and collective experiences of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood. 

Maggie Scott’s technical practice is unparalleled in the landscape of contemporary British art, sitting at the boundary of tapestry and digital media, she employs a combination of photography, digital collage and silk and then injects colour by laboriously pushing vibrant merino wool fibres through silk in a process known as Nuno felting.  

The intensely physical process of felting is followed by the careful process of using stitch to emphasise the smaller details of an image, evoking both the physicality of childbirth and the careful attention and tenderness of what follows. In working with fibre Scott pushes a medium traditionally associated with craft into the realm of fine art. As a textile artist, Scott employs distinctly feminine materials, but with soft images, she speaks hard truths.  

Birth is the most innate experience of human existence yet for centuries, childbirth has also been the most dangerous undertaking of a woman’s life. Rates of maternal mortality have dropped dramatically in Britain since the mid-18th century.   

Nuno felted art
Nuno felted art

However, the effects of modern medicine have not been felt equally. In 2019 MBRACE UK published data within its Perinatal Mortality report, which revealed that people of colour remain at a much higher risk during pregnancy and childbirth within the British healthcare system. Most disturbingly the report revealed that in the United Kingdom a Black woman is five times more likely to die during childbirth than her white counterpart. 

Five Times More  humanises the statistics published by MBRACE UK. 

Filmed at the Knitting & Stitching Show 2022

Cotton Mills by the Irwell

Even though I’ve been wet-felting for years, it still amazes me what can be created with some wool roving and a bit of soapy water.
At the weekend I had another brilliant day with the Feltmakers, this time with the very talented Valerie Wartelle. Her landscape work is stunning.
I started with a blank piece of pre-felt and started imagining a landscape of my own.
Slowly the picture developed.
A bit of rolling later.
And a bit of fulling and rinsing later.
The felt was drying.
My Cotton Mills by the Irwell.
It needs a good press, a little bit of embroidery and then framing.
I’m chuffed to bits with it.