All
erton’s recent Joan & Peter Hood Artist-in-Residence Hillary Waters Fayledescribed the central focus of her work as “bringing together elements of nature and culture.”
As an artist and fiber educator, Waters Fayle combined her affinity for textiles and nature during her three-week residency at the Park.
“I always had a fascination with both needlework and nature- and with both I was always very intrigued with the tiniest details,” Hillary explained. “I really loved learning how to stitch as a young child and alongside drawing, I could frequently be found occupying myself with a needle and thread.”
Growing up, she was influenced by her mother and grandmother, who were both gardeners. “I also really loved learning about nature – the names of birds and flowers,” she reflected.
As a child, she attended an “environmentalist-themed summer camp” in New York where she fell in love with its message of “teaching the next generation that it’s our responsibility to better understand and protect nature and our increasingly more fragile ecosystems.” The camp was so influential that she knew she wanted to keep attending in every capacity she could. She continued as a camper for several years and eventually as a staff member.
After spending a semester abroad working on embroidery and “insertion stitches,” Hillary was working as the camp cook when she started questioning new mediums for her stitch work.
“I, by chance, looked up at a beautiful old oak tree and noticed the thick, tough leaves,” she recalled. “I wondered if I might be able to stitch on them, and when it worked, I felt almost immediately that it was the best thing I’d ever made.”
The realization that she could make art with the two things she cared about most was the beginning of the now decades-long exploration of using natural and botanical materials in her work.
“I was pressing the leaves in order to preserve them while I was stitching them, and that led to using pressed botanical material in different ways, which led to using cyanotype…one exploration always seems to lead to another,” she said.
For the past six years, Hillary has been working on a body of art she calls, “Portraits of Place,” collecting material and breaking it down to its smallest from. She then arranges the plants and presses them for several weeks until fully dry.
“When I open the press back up, I have thousands of tiny petals, leaves, seeds and stems to use – I think of them almost as individual marks I can use to draw with,” Hillary explained.
She arranges and rearranges the individual pieces down until they feel right and carefully glues each individual piece down on paper or clear acrylic. The piece then reflects a story of the land from which the materials originated.
“I feel strongly that the flora growing in any particular place holds the history of that land, and these pieces are all about telling that story,” Hillary said.
Waters Fayle led two classes while she was in residence. Slow Stitch introduced students to the basics of embroidery using botanical material, and a cyanotype printing class (pictured right) allowed students to collect botanical material and learn the process of turning them into blueprints (cyanotype). She also used her time to collect botanical material from Allerton to create its very own “Portrait of Place.”
Thank you to Joan & Peter Hood for supporting Hillary’s residency. Learn more about Allerton’s Artist-in-Residence Program here.
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