abiwheeler

After a teaching career in the visual arts, I now balance freelance work in arts education with a career as a professional maker.

Having undertaken many evening and part time courses in a range of creative disciplines, I have spent the last few years concentrating on developing my skills and knowledge of textiles. I learnt to weave, experimented with printmaking and stitch and picked up my knitting needles. When the A Level department that I worked in gave notice of closure in 2015, I started volunteering at a local art gallery and subsequently picked up some freelance work in arts education. Having manoeuvred myself into a positive new direction.....I started work in earnest on my first micro collection of work.

I now have a studio in a former Wesleyan chapel in Ryde on the Isle of Wight where I work alongside some extremely talented folk. I am interested in the relationship between the domestic and the industrial. I take inspiration from the iconography of ports and harbours; environments that are familiar to me, and have combined the shapes, textures and materials with the technical skills of hand knitting.