Becky Adams, Applied artist

ABOVE: Embroidered pocket watch books have hidden messages, £65.

Naomi Jones meets Becky Adams, an applied artist who loves the unloved and gives them a new lease of life.

How did you get to where you are now?
I graduated with a BA (Hons) in fine art with English literature at Liverpool in 1994, and later gained an MA in Book Arts in 2001 from Camberwell College of Arts. During the last few years I’ve been more focused on stitch and textiles; this seems to have been a natural progression from the binding of books and the love of a narrative thread.

How would you describe yourself?
As a collector of stories: they become a part of my life and are ingrained into the making of my work by combining stitched paper, vintage fabric, old books full of sketches and antique ephemera to create intricate textile and book works.

What inspires you the most?
I delight in filling notebooks with thoughts, drawings, and collections – I have hundreds of them and they’re becoming a bit of a storage problem. I also love to rescue broken, unloved or lost things, the worn, the discarded – a piece of driftwood on the beach, a scrap of old textile, peeling wallpaper... anything with a sense of its own history – and preserve their story. I’ve been known to embroider a fabric saucer for a chipped china cup and am currently preoccupied with stitching faces for old pocket watches.

ABOVE (left-right): The Mobile Phone, a red phone box on wheels, has a sense of quirky fun; Becky works at home in her kitchen.

Which creation are you most proud of?
The Mobile Library, a miniature library that houses four concertina fabric books relating to my grandparents. Each is stitched with much love and includes the sewing machine of one grandmother, the carpentry tools of my grandfather, a pocket watch belonging to my other grandfather and an old photograph of my maternal grandmother enjoying a picnic as a small child.

Is your craft a full-time occupation?
Not quite yet. There have been many times of personal ‘economic downturn’ – a period spent volunteering in Israel and the Middle East, and a long time living in India; but even when surviving on absolute peanuts, my notepads were always close at hand. These days, I supplement my income travelling all over the country running workshops and undertaking artist residencies, including ones at the Ruthin Craft Centre in Denbighshire, Lynn Museum in Norfolk, and at a girls’ boarding school – Queenswood School in Hertfordshire.

ABOVE (left-right): Becky combines fabric, paper, buttons and sequins in the Time for Tea fabric book; this old teacup needed a new saucer, so Becky fashioned a fabric replacement.

Do you have your own workshop yet?
No, I dream of my own studio at the end of a little garden one day; but at the moment, I work at home in Penarth, Wales, in my small kitchen – I have the radio on for company, and a constant source of cups of tea.

What advice would you offer our readers?
A sketchbook can house a thousand dreams and ideas.

Whose piece of advice do you adhere to?
William Morris, for his adage: ‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful’.

What do you do to take your mind off work?
Take trips to Abergavenny flea market, strolls down Penarth Pier and long walks on the beach. My boyfriend lives some distance from me, so train journeys are also a time for quiet reflection – though I tend to be sewing, even then.

Visit beckyadams.co.uk or call 02920 707765 for sales or to discuss a commission.