Artist in Residence

Cross-stitch koi fish

ISF ACADEMY PRIMARY School

In May 2021, I was invited to be the artist-in-residence at ISF Academy Primary for one month. I built the three wooden frames, each inset with a wire mesh panel to work on as my canvas. Five giant cross-stitch koi fish were interwoven using coloured cord, over the course of the 4 week period.

During the first week of my residency I was able to focus all of my attention on beginning to create the artworks. The students were fascinated to see what I was doing and how the floating pixelated designs continued to develop further each day. They were very curious to ask questions about myself and the previous work of Make and Do HK. Over the three weeks that followed, I balanced my time between teaching 200 Grade 4 students and completing the frames. (Let’s just say there were a few late nights and Lucy also came to help to get the fish completed within that month!)

I’m so incredibly happy with how they turned out. This was such an amazing project to work on! I will be forever grateful to ISF Academy for giving me this amazing opportunity and especially to Julie Emery, Head of Art, for her encouragement and for making this happen despite all of the obstacles that were put in our way over the previous year. We did it!

student workshops

Over a three week period I worked with 200 Grade 4 students (ages 8-9), leading them on a fun exploration of embroidery. A series of 3 workshops were allocated per class (each consisting of 20 students). We began by creating colourful patterns on perforated wooden fish, which I had specially designed and made on our in-house laser cutter for this project. This was a great way of establishing the foundational skills of embroidery; threading up a needle, tying a knot, creating the simple back and forth motion of stitch. The students thoroughly enjoyed seeing their fish come to life. This helped to build up their confidence and they were brimming with pride from seeing the beautiful results they could achieve.

Throughout the programme the students were introduced to a variety of different stitch patterns and guided through ways to apply them, taking their understanding of embroidery to the next level. They had the opportunity to create their own design by application of the skills and techniques they had learned. They began by working on a small bamboo hoop as their canvas and using woollen yarn as their colouring tool. The students were able to gain an understanding of the whole process, creating their own mini version and mastering similar techniques to those I used to make the larger-size cross-stitch fish on the frames.

Thank you to all of the art teachers at ISF Academy Primary for all of your kind help, continued support and for making me feel so welcome during my stay.