My first artistic love  and discipline was sculpture and I have always enjoyed working in three dimensions.

About twenty years ago I discovered felt making and have worked with this medium since then.

I am constantly fascinated and intrigued by the amazing versatility of felt and the wide range of effects that are possible. Currently I am working on a whole range of projects: from combining three dimensional felt with the effects of light; using poetry, both my own and other’s to inspire and inform my work; and starting with buildings and gardens as inspiration to create art works and wall hangings. As well as using wet felting I also work with an embellishing machine, dip into free machine embroidery and, if I really can’t avoid it, hand sewing.

In order to extend the courses we offer I am also exploring dry needle felting to create small models, stitching and dyeing to achieve three dimensional effects in flat felt and generally keeping a weather eye open for new techniques to share with others. Teaching has always been my passion and I thoroughly enjoy passing on new and extended skills to others.

My childhood was spent on  a croft in Wester Ross in an area of outstanding natural beauty, an environment that fascinated  and enchanted me from an early age and which continues to inspire me today.

Further inspiration comes from my love of folklore, magic and the natural word and the emotions evoked by my interaction with these elements are incorporated in much of my work.

Currently I am developing my work with felted hats, creating one-off designs using lots of texture and rich colours; making wall art that incorporates wet felted backgrounds that I then embellish with embroidery and needle felting as well as forming a three dimensional effect by stitching  and padding; working on weavings using my own photographs and hand spun and dyed yarns as well as many found objects; and  playing with anything else I can get my hands on!

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But where, you may ask, is Diva number three? Dawn Cawthra-Hewitt now has a studio at Moray Arts Centre where she is concentrating on developing her own work. She is collaborating with us on various fronts – we would miss each other too much if we didn’t get together on a regular basis – and will be teaching some of the courses we offer at Diva. We are still very good friends!