Claire Benn 

” I do not wish reproduce the landscape itself, but what I feel and experience.”

Plateau

92 x 66 cm

linen, paper, cotton thread, earth pigments, acrylic paint, hand stitch

Alto Atacama

134 x 92cm 

hemp and cotton canvas, linen thread, appliqué, earth pigments, acrylic medium

British artist Claire Benn is based in Surrey, England. She is inspired by remote landscapes and the visual translation of what she experiences. She uses printing and painting techniques with stitch to combine colour and texture into atmospheric representational abstractions.

What were your first influences with textiles?

My father engaged me in art from an early age and I spent happy hours drawing and painting.  Like most people who engage with textiles, my paternal grandmother started me off with small projects such as samplers and needle cases. I made a nightdress that would have fitted an elephant, so that was the end of any attempts at clothing.  Not being academically minded, I left 6^th Form at seventeen and started work and any form of art was sidelined in the quest for financial self-sufficiency and independence, culminating in work as a self-employed training consultant.

What attracted you to textiles as a medium?

I re-engaged with textiles in 1994 in response to seeing a Mennonite quilt in Canada. I was inspired by the combination of form and function and simply wanted to have a go. After making a few quilts with my own designs in 1996 I encountered hand-dyed cloth and learnt the basics from Leslie Morgan. That same year we’d moved the family out of London and I was able to commandeer an outbuilding as a wet studio.  Being self-employed enabled me to control my diary and dedicate myself to a regular studio practice.  I stopped making quilts and started concentrating on making a single piece of cloth work for me visually.  

I re-engaged with hand stitch in 2013, whilst on an Ayurvedic retreat in India.  Hand stitch is an exploration of stillness and silence, and most definitely a kind of meditation due to the repetition involved. I’m not an embroiderer, I’m a stitcher.

What was your route to becoming an artist?

Learning about and exploring surface design techniques took me down the road of art.  Spending time at a sewing machine didn’t do it for me and as such, making clothes or functional items held no appeal (although I do occasionally make a functional quilt).  Leslie encouraged me down the art route, as did Nancy Crow and Jane Dunnewold.  Exploration time in my studio taught me that before I could get to the ‘creation’ part – the realisation of ideas and inspirations – I had to master both the materials and the making process.  I had to learn the craft.  Once I’d achieved that, I’d be free to use my materials in any way I wanted, free to transform my inspirations in to artworks.  And finally, with due diligence paid to composition, I’d get to the stage of artist.

It took me 10 years of practise to establish a practice.  To get to a point where I felt I knew what made a good composition and to settle on what I wanted my work to communicate – what sensibilities I wanted my work to stimulate in the viewer. 

How do you create a piece?

My key starting point is simply one of looking, allowing the silence and stillness of place to enter.  With looking comes seeing – both the (apparently) empty space and the fullness of detail within it; textures, colours, tones, lines, forms.  I also like to write – not in the sense of a journal – more of a simple record of my thoughts and feelings.  No sketchbooks as such, just a few roughly drawn references of what I see and respond to.  A few photographs, enough to serve as a reminder of colour and ‘assist’ the drawings. I place my trust in memory rather than recorded images as my aim for my art is to stimulate the same sensibilities I experienced when in the landscape.  I do not wish reproduce the landscape itself, but what I feel and experience. 

I decide on my size, format and initial background colour and just start.  I rarely sample small as I find that to truly understand a composition, I have to work to size.  A great deal of time is spent looking and considering the work as it evolves.  I can’t honestly say what I think about when I consider a new work-in-progress, I simply look and let the thoughts come.  I make a few notes, perhaps do the odd sketch, make a decision as to next steps and get on with it.

What techniques do you use?

I used many surface design techniques in my early work but haven’t used a silk screen or thermofax screen for many years, preferring to work with tools that give me a greater sense of my hand.  I’ve also moved away from using fibre reactive dyes, preferring to use raw earth pigments for my landscape works as they connect me back to the land and have a definite literal texture.

‘Traditional’ mono printing techniques are key techniques for me although I don’t use a glass plate, preferring to work on plastic and take the cloth to it, or take painted strips of plastic to the cloth. Cloth is absorbent but plastic isn’t.  I can move colours and values around on plastic before I commit, which I can’t do working directly on cloth.  Scrapers, foam rollers, squeeze bottles, paint pads and brushes are also key tools for building up layers and developing the work.

More often than not, hand stitch is involved; before, during and after painting.  It can be scary to layer paint on top of something that’s taken days or weeks to stitch, but I feel the encrustation of paint on stitch helps me to convey a sense of earth, rock, stone or other natural elements.  Paint on stitch also somehow integrates the thread in to the work and if I want, need or choose to, I can sand the paint back to generate more texture.

How has your work developed?

I would describe my earlier work as being complex, layered and detailed and my evolution has involved simplifying.  I would describe me current work as quiet, reductive, simple, serene and contemplative.  Agnes Martin said “your path is at your feet”.  I think I’ve found mine and don’t presently feel any desire to deviate from it.  I don’t really think about where my work might go in the future, preferring to work in the present and see where that takes me.

Do you have any advice for aspiring textile artists?

Quite simply, “do the work”.  Becoming and being an artist involves commitment, discipline, courage, curiosity, a willingness to explore, take risks, learn from failure and then let it go.  You cannot establish a practice without practise.  Dedicate time in your diary that is sacred to studio work – write in ink!  Go in to the work space (studio, spare room, shed – whatever), leave the computer and phone behind and immerse yourself.  If you have work or other commitments (such as children, grandchildren, ageing parents), be sure to set boundaries and stick to them.  When asked “what are you doing next Tuesday” the response should firstly be “I’m not sure, why?”.  You can then look at your diary and seeing “STUDIO’ written large across certain days of the week can respond with “I can’t make that, I have a previous engagement”.  No-one needs to know it’s with yourself.

https://www.clairebenn.com

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