Amanda Cobbett

Amanda Cobbett is an award-winning textile artist with over 30 years’ experience.

She took up embroidery after a successful career as a Fashion print designer because she wanted to return to the art of making and a more meaningful approach to textiles as a medium. Through walking in the forest, Amanda found the perfect subject matter to faithfully replicate. She carefully documents each find and notes it location. Amanda has adapted a very simple embroidery technique to create 3 dimensional embroidered hyper-real sculptures. This ‘slow textile’ process has garnered interest from scientists, art collectors and textile enthusiasts alike.

The process of research, development, stitching, and outcome has a mindful rhythm.

In my footsteps as a walk, I’m imagining stitching a line along the contours of the forest paths like that of like a dotted line on an OS map, with one continuous thread couching me down to an environment that I want to belong to, one that I’m curious about. So concerned for species that we might be inclined to overlook and neglect amongst the forest understory, I’m encouraged to stitch them back into being, to remind us of their importance in our delicate ecosystem. There is something about the nature of a stitch through its strength, its permanence, and its place throughout history that these ‘quiet beauties’ cannot outlast. It will never be the solution to stop their potential denigration but perhaps it will be a gentle reminder to keep a watchful eye on these vital species.