Sometimes in life it takes a huge and tumultuous change to put us on a new and happier path. When the husband of textile artist, Maggie Grey, was retrenched from his insurance industry job the couple were initially in shock. “We thought it was the worse thing in the world,” remembers Maggie, “it soon turned out to be the best thing that could have happened.” Today husband, Clive, is a partner in Maggie’s highly successful art and teaching career and the pair couldn’t be happier.
Maggie and Clive met while both working in Information Technology (IT) and when he moved from full time employment into consultancy work Maggie decided to “escape” the insurance industry she was used to and join him as his “number cruncher”. With newly flexible hours and a desire to smell the roses Maggie, always a lover of painting and drawing, decided to take a few (UK) City & Guild classes.
“I saw an article about machine embroidery on water colour paper that inspired me. That was about 25 years ago,” she says. “Before long my interest in all forms of stitch and papercraft was expanding. I was being approached to teach and Clive was having to do his own number crunching.”
By 1996, only eight years from when the journey had started, Maggie was editing ‘The World of Embroidery’ and eventually began teaching distance learning classes. “I enjoyed teaching the minute I started,” she says. “I got a high from passing on information.”
Always early adopters of technology and fascinated by the internet, once their children had left home and the mortgage was paid off, Maggie and Clive decided to “take a punt” on the new global community online. “Clive spent £100 learning to use HTML (the programming language used to create documents for display on the Web) and it was the best investment of his life. This allowed us to begin the distance learning business.”
Machine embroidery is Maggie’s usual method of construction which she likes to do on complex surfaces built up with layers which may be fabric or paper, usually painted. By 2001 Maggie had co-authored a book called ‘Layers of Stitch’ (B T Batsford) with the late and legendary embroiderer and author, Val Campbell-Harding. That same year she resigned from her position with ‘The World of Embroidery’ and began a new and innovative business called Workshop on the Web. Today Maggie, Clive and Clive’s daughter all work together. Maggie teaches and exhibits all over the world and has a number of books to her credit including ‘Celtic Inspirations’, ‘Raising the Surface’, ‘Paper, Metal & Stitch’, ‘Stitch Dissolve Distort’, ‘Embellish & Stitch’ and ‘Image to Stitch’.
“Workshop on the Web is a quarterly publication exclusive to the internet,
featuring renowned tutors who give step-by-step details of textile techniques and ideas for using those techniques creatively. Machine embroidery, hand stitching, mixed media work from metals to the latest developments in plastics technology and beyond and are all tackled.”
Maggie says that when Workshop on the Web was launched she thought it would be “like a club with a few members”. Within six weeks it had 1500 people subscribing to it and, seven years on, the members normally number around 7000 from all over the world. “It’s great for people who can’t get out to classes, maybe they’re Mums at home with small children, maybe they’re carers. It’s an idea born of the Web,” she says.
Now able to work from home (except, of course, when she’s teaching around the UK and abroad), Maggie and Clive both find themselves at their desks by around 7am and, to cope with the competing demands of teaching versus creating, Maggie strikes out whole weeks on the calendar where she concentrates on creating new works. “I have to do it this way,” she explains. “I am not someone who can pick up and put things down. I have to work in concentrated blocks.”
In 2009 Maggie will be coming to Australia to teach at the WA Craft, Quilt & Stitch Show (31 July - 2 August). For information go to www.trueblue-exhibitions.com.au [trueblue-exhibitions.com.au]. One of her children lives in Sydney.
Last year Maggie and photographer, Michael Wicks, got into self publishing with the launch of D4Daisy Books Ltd and released Maggie’s newest book, ‘Textile Translations: Mixed Media’. Purchasers of the book can also access free classes online when they visit the D4Daisy Books website. This book shows you how to work from design source to finished piece, exploring a variety of mixed media techniques on the journey, from backgrounds built-up with gesso and paper to finished pieces using kozo fibres and embossing powder.
One of the other books that D4Daisy Books has produced is ‘Exploring Colour’ with Julia Caprara. Julia, who died in October 2008, was teacher and co-principal of Opus School of Textile Arts, as well as a Fellow of the Society of Designer Craftsmen and the Honorary Exhibiting Member of the 62 Group of Textile Artists.
When we interviewed Maggie she was working on a piece for an exhibition with Wessex Textiles in Salisbury Museum as well as something for the Cyber Fyber exhibition which took place at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in South Carolina, USA. The focus of that exhibition was to highlight the influences of Internet access for today’s fibre artists.
“I’ve called one of the pieces ‘Digital Humanity’,” explains Maggie. “It’s faces, hands and little messages are all done with fabric, paper and metal, not to mention free machining and decorative stitching. Another one is like a reliquary (a receptacle, such as a coffin or shrine, for keeping or displaying sacred relics) which is made up of bits of old computers. It would make a perfect gift for Bill Gates!”
Name: Maggie Grey
Based: Dorset, UK
Personal web site: www.hiraeth.com/chezgrey [workshopontheweb.com]
Workshop on the Web: www.workshopontheweb.com [workshopontheweb.com]
Quiltwow www.quiltwow.com [quiltwow.com]
Blog www.magstitch.blogspot.com [magstitch.blogspot.com]
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