Marion Hingston Lamb

My work is abstract rather than pictorial, with the environment, natural and man made, usually at the heart of the inspiration. My concerns about climate change are never far away.
 
Most of my work is wet felted. I get a real thrill from transforming raw unspun fleece into smooth fine fabric; I use wool from local sheep as well as imported merino from non-mulesed stock, adding recycled or remnant fabrics - very little is wasted in the process. I also hand stitch, exploring mark making with needle and thread; I collage with fabric scraps and print with rust; I laminate paper printed with my photographs onto silk fabric. I dye wool fibre, silk fabric and threads with plants I find growing around me and like to mix these with commercially dyed materials, old and new.
 
I get pleasure from the processes themselves, and am always asking “what if?” but for me the choice of technique come down to what best enables me to explore and express particular ideas and furthers my aim to make pieces which interest and intrigue. For this reason too I like to work in series.
 
I studied textile conservation at the Courtauld Institute of Art and for ten years was a textile conservator working with museum textiles. The knowledge and understanding gained from this informs my work. When I stitch I often use couching which is the predominant technique I used as a textile conservator to stabilise textile fragments.

Shifting Shorelines (Blanda estuary) I

Erosion - running repairs IV

Erosion III