CETG Talk on Monday 17th April 2023
Ros Cooper - Finding a Focus

Ros created a beautiful display of her work for all the members to see and gave us a really interesting and detailed explanation of how she produces such lovely pieces.  

Until she joined CETG Ros hadn’t been very creative as she had been following an academic career rather than an artistic one.  But, after joining CETG Ros definitely got bitten by the textile bug!

 
She started working her way through Janet Edmonds book ‘From Print to Stitch’ and tried out many of the different techniques.  She also happened to attend a City and Guilds Textile exhibition at Great Missenden where the students had been taught by Janet!  However, she decided she didn’t want to do all the assessments involved in C&G courses but just wanted to make.  She also learnt a lot from Wendy Dolan’s book ‘Layer, Paint and Stitch’ which helped her to use paint more freely and she discovered how to do machine embroidery from Gina Ferrari’s DVD.  

In September 2016 Ros attended a CETG meeting and heard a talk by Wendy Dolan which was something of a lightbulb moment!  Up until then she had mostly been making cards and small pieces but she then realised that she could work on a much bigger scale!  

In March 2017 Carol Waddle gave a talk to CETG called ‘Design is not a Dirty Word!’ which showed Ros how she could use a photocopier to re-size her work!  After that another CETG member, Judith Gibson, invited Ros to join a study group with Marilyn Pipe.  This is when she started to take off and produce her own, large work.  She felt she had to up her game as part of that group and made her first large piece - Veronicastrum.  This was later cut up into two smaller pieces as it just didn’t work as a composition, but after that Ros stopped flirting with different techniques and started going steady!
 

The study group was short lived but in November 2019 Judith got Ros to participate in the Haddenham Art Fair.  This was the first time Ros put her work out on show and she was delighted to have her first sales and also to receive a commission!  

During the talk Ros explained in great detail exactly how she makes her wonderful work which is nearly always inspired by either nature or different artists, with Odilon Redon, a French Symbolist artist being a firm favourite.  She works on both cotton and velvet using acrylic paints, stencils, masks, Markal paints and bleach.  Her favourite stitches on the machine are Whip stitch and Cable stitch.

Since the Art Fair in 2019 Ros has gone from strength to strength with many more sales and commissions!  She gives CETG and two of the members in particular credit for getting her started.  As a group we feel very fortunate to have such a talented textile artist as one of our members.

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Text © Michaela Matza CETG 2023

Photos © Ros Cooper