THISTLES ON THE TRACK Artwork - Limited Edition of 1

A Little bit about me....Diana Worthy My training background spans many years from Saturday morning Life drawing classes at Camberwell Art College in London as a 14 year old schoolgirl onto Art Foundation at Croydon , where my tutors included Bridget Riley and Barry Fantoni. From there I did a Dip. AD course in 3D Mixed Media ( mostly ceramics ) at Loughborough College of Art and finally an MA post Graduate Degree at The Royal College of Art under David ( Lord ) Queensberry. After graduating in 1969 I was offered freelance pottery designing positions in Kilkenny Design Workshops and Denby Pottery. Also at the same time I began lecturing at Wolverhampton Art College. Several years on in 1975 I was able to start up my own small ceramics workshop - Crich Pottery in Derbyshire. With husband David the pottery was worked successfully for nearly 30 years, selling in places such as the British Craft Centre , Heals , Liberty's and many craft galleries across the UK , as well as exporting - most notably to Japan , Norway, USA , Germany, Italy and the UAE. During this time there were fleeting moments when I would have loved to experiment with other materials - textiles in particular, but there was never a moment available to indulge this interest. So the decision in 2004 to close the pottery and relocate to Spain , finally allowed me the mental space to change creative direction. Initially I tried spinning and weaving , however it was working in felt that totally captured my imagination, in particular felting with Alpaca fleece sheared from our own animals which we now breed here on our Spanish hillside. This has led me on a voyage of discovery , a journey that has shown me what a wonderfully sensory and uniquely soft material Alpaca fleece is .It posseses a living , moving quality with a mind all of it's own , a deep understanding of which is needed to channel it's movement in order to achieve the desired results. When I use colour I "paint " fleece and dye it using a microwave oven where it undergoes a magical change - like alchemy ! The versatility of the fibre lends itself to 2 or 3 dimensions and answers my desire to be an image maker rather than a maker of useful artefacts so I am thrilled to be working in this most ancient of materials. If you would like to see a glimpse of our small farm in Andalucía and the alpacas whose fleece I work with please visit the websites at the address below.