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Illustration: Peggy Brown. December Ice. Peggy Brown approaches textile art from the perspective of a watercolour artist. She produces fine art painting on both paper and fabric and is able to drift between the two mediums without the usual barriers that are often thrown up between textile and fine art painting. As far as textiles are concerned, Brown applies watercolour paint on to white fabric and then builds up layers of intensity of colour and texture as the mood takes her. These painted fabric pieces are then used within a built up collage composition. She also regularly uses paper within the composition as well as fabric, paper giving a different textural quality to that of the fabric.  Illustration: Peggy Brown. Another Form. Interestingly Brown uses the organic and free flowing quality of the watercolour paint to emphasise that very fact, that water is both free and fluid in its seemingly random journey across both fabric and paper. However, she also manages to give this ...

Illustration: Catherine Kleeman. Identity Crisis , 2009. Illustration: Catherine Kleeman. Identity Crisis (detail), 2009. Catherine Kleeman is a textile artist that uses the idea of layers as a central theme to her work. It would be more exact to say perhaps that Kleemen builds up whole systems of multi-layers and even layers within layers, producing work that has a wealth of detail and exactness to it that corresponds to hours of labour. The work is both colourful and vibrant, but what makes it especially so is the fact that she is able to dye her own fabrics to her own specifications. However, the relatively simple process of dying fabric for her own needs is not enough for this multi-layered artist. Kleeman also hand paints, stamps, silk screens and batiks the fabrics as well as using various mark making techniques which make her fabrics well and truly her own.  Illustration: Catherine Kleeman. Family Reunion , 2008. Illustration: Catherine Kleeman. Family Reunion (detail), ...

Illustration: Valerie Goodwin. African Burial Ground II , 2009. Valerie Goodwin is a textile artist that probably approaches the medium through a realatively unique perspective, that of an architect. She has both a degree and Masters in architecture and has taught architectural design. This gives her a strong and definite edge to her work akin to that of the fairly structured disciplines of cartography, archaeology and architecture.  Illustration: Valerie Goodwin. City Grid IV , 2007. The use of planned and structured surfaces could give her work a cold and clinical appeal with quilts appearing as hard and intransigent geometrically set grids, but instead her work, although much of it based on the city grid map, takes into account the human element that makes a town or city. What at first glance  what seems to have been both scientifically and geometrically planned within an office as a concept or task, takes on the role of an organic human landscape. This becomes more appare...

Illustration: Lisa Hochstein. Compass salvaged paper collage. Paper work is very often considered to be, within the textile world at least, an integral part of the process of both textile design and textile artwork. In many cases the paper work is the first stage of a fairly lengthy process whereby ideas are first formulated, often changed and manipulated before being transferred to another medium, whether that be textile printing, weaving, quilting, embroidery, or indeed fine art painting. However, it should be noted that paper collage is in its own right an art form and should not be seen as a mere process towards another medium or idea. The work of the California based artist Lisa Hochstein shows us through her varied work, excellent examples as to how an artist can use a medium like paper collage in tandem with both textile and fine art painting without the paper collage medium feeling an awkward second best. Through her work, she is able to show us the maturity that paper collag...