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Elizabeth Cottham grew up on a farm, the feeling of nature at her fingertips throughout her childhood gave her a lifelong appreciation of the natural world in all its colours and beauty. Even when she was at school her pieces of art took on the colours of the surrounding countryside and much later in life when she moved to Lune Valley, she was able to revisit the natural world that inspired her and produce it within her artwork.

 

She stated that “I experimented with plant dyes which I used to dye curly, lustrous sheep’s fleece and evolved the embroidered hangings which I make now using the dyed fleece, hand spinning and simple stitches. I find the technique is very versatile and dimensions can vary from six inches to six feet.”

 

Forty years later some of Elizabeth’s early work is still around, she still use roots, bark, leaves and flowers to dye the wool. Recent exhibitions of hers have been in a church in East Sussex in 2013 and in a Luxembourg Bank in 2014.