Jane McKeating Embroidered Storytelling

I was fortunate to recently come across the work of Jane McKeating and was instantly and completely taken in by her beautiful illustrative and textural artworks. This prompted me to get in touch and last week we did a great Q&A session which I’m sure you will find as fascinating as I did.

1. What are your first memories of creating Art as a child and was this something that was encouraged by your teachers and parents ?

My mother always encouraged to me draw, my siblings and I sat at the table drawing all the time, mostly maps and imaginary places. When I was at primary school, I was very slow learning to read and was terribly shy, so my teacher gave me a blank book where all the other children had a lined one for writing. She told me I shouldn’t worry about reading and writing and just draw instead. She made me feel special instead of a dunce. What a brilliant teacher Mrs Perrons was, it was the 60s before anyone had heard of neurodivergence and yet she instinctively supported me to find my strengths.  I still regard the visual as my first language.

2. When and why did you start to regularly work in a journal. Do you do this to keep your work together, because it’s a handy format to transport or simply as a way to test out ideas that may later turn into something more ?

My sketchbooks are my journals, and I use them daily. I started using them when I was about 17 and have kept them ever since. If there was a fire and I had to choose something to save, they would be what I would save. The valuable bits are the images, I rarely go back to read what I’ve written, but it’s good to write things as it gets it out of my head and I can work stuff out. I often do weird diagrams and then add images over the top. Or draw over the writing so I can only see glimpses of thoughts.

3. You appear to have a love of colour and pattern, where did this start to become important in your work ? Some illustrations almost become patterns in themselves, is this a conscious thing, or do you let your mind and hands just do their own thing ?

My mind and hand definitely do their own thing. I don’t usually plan anything in advance. I am very instinctive. I have always loved colour and pattern. I am synesthetic and I think this really influences my use of colour. As a child I loved images in story books, and I still have many of them. I love the images by Gwyneth Mamlock, and Brian Wildsmith to pick out just 2. Amongst many others they are a strong influence on my visual language. For a while I thought that made me an illustrator, but I have discovered I’m really not, I am just influenced by illustrations with no interest at all in the text that they are designed for. The pattern obsession is what led me into textiles, but it was a bit of an assumption by others that I would go into design, which never really interested me at all. I love how pattern both surrounds us and covers us and makes a crazy jumble of marks. My favourite space to draw is in odd bed and breakfasts where the jumble of colours and patterns can often be at their most bizarre

4. Does your work largely focus on drawing folk around you, in your day to day life or is some taken from photographs, magazines, other sources ? Are there stories in your work that only you know about and how did your idea of painting over your lists and writing come about ?

It’s mostly domestic stuff going on around me. I rarely work from other sources. I have 5 children and 2 grandchildren, and they always say if you stay very long in our house you get drawn. My most frequent model is my husband who is a very still, peaceful man who always wears stripy T-shirts which are gorgeous to draw so the poor man gets drawn very often. His bald head is a great shape too. There are often images that inspire us throughout our lives, and the one for me is Vuillards ‘Interior with mother and sister of the artist ‘1893. I come back to it endlessly; I have worn out the postcard. I love the way the figure emerges from the wall as though she is part of it, and I find the connection between the figure and the environment in which it exists is what inspires me.

The work is all visual stories, but I make up the stories during or after making the work. So, I explore the characters, and they suggest the stories. When I exhibit as part of the ‘62 group’ or the ‘Textile Study Group’, I submit the story as the artist’s statement. They usually have an element of humour. So, there is a story attached to each work, but the story follows the image instead of the other way round. I often work in series, so for example the ‘Cardigan Girls’ were loads of prints and collages about girls in cardigans.

I work over my writing because my writing irritates me, it’s usually of little value just notes about stuff. Because I worked full time in Education for 30 years the only way I could make time to draw was in little moments at work, discretely at meetings, or on the commute, and my office diaries were often all I had with me. I really enjoy the humour of crazy comments about work peeping through images of people and places that are unrelated. Just as these mixes of our lives are scrambled in our brains anyway. I’ve no filing system in my head, so the jumble expresses my personal chaos as well as making the images less precious.

5. You have a love of print and embroidery, when did you begin to intertwine the two ?

I studied embroidery at Goldsmiths college in the 80s. It was in the days where girls were encouraged to do Textiles and boys Fine Art, so I chose it not because I had any interest in embroidery, but because when I looked round University courses I couldn’t find any textiles courses that weren’t design led, and someone at Goldsmiths said ‘oh you can just draw here if you like’, so that’s what I did for 3 years, and then in the last term I discovered I actually quite liked embroidery, and went on to do an MA at Manchester because they had a wonderful repeat Shiffli embroidery machine. Then I taught embroidery for many years at Manchester School of Art and ended up as Associate head of Design, whilst definitely not being a designer.

I have always loved print but didn’t have much experience or skills. About 5 years ago I did the complete printmakers course at Hot bed Press which was 3 years long and I just love the mix of print and stitch now. I enjoy the way you can create a plate or a screen of images and then reinvent them in so many different ways by using collage, backgrounds, painting, cutting and stitching. I love combining multiple methods and often only stop when I reach a deadline for work to be sent off. The printed surface is often very flat and the stitch gives it a rich texture because stitch is 3 dimensional.

6. Lovely to see your ideas are being taken into areas of product. Ties, fabric, belts etc. Do you have ideas to move into more areas in this way ?

I turn things into products if the idea asks for it. I haven’t done it recently but might do at any point if it feels right for the images. I like making books particularly because of the sequence.

7. Do you have a favourite way of working ? What are your typical processes ?

I enjoy combining processes. I start usually with drawing, then move into print, then stitch, then cut, then print again, then stitch again until I have drowned it all, and it either works, or it doesn’t. I have a lot of different stuff on the go at the same time and keep going back to images until I feel they say what I want.  I use images from years ago sometimes, so someone from decades ago will suddenly pop up and surprise me.

8. There are people who appear in your work again and again, are these folk around you that you see a lot of, or characters that you have developed for your artwork ?

I draw people around me, I drew loads of people at work and could be quite discreet drawing in meetings. I draw family and friends and strangers in cafes and on trains. I do often make people up as well; I love an imaginary friend.

9. When are you happiest with your art ? Is there anything about your ways of working that feels more laboursome or mundane ? Do you have colours or techniques that you tend to favour over others ?

I love being absorbed in a project. I find it hard to start off with new things. In the groups I am in there are often exhibition themes which sound awful and don’t inspire me, but I always find a way in, and once I have found it, I am happy. I don’t plan, but I make drawings and prints and allow the work to tell me what’s happening. My happy moments are where it’s starting to work. I am at that stage with the current project, which is working with horrible, donated polyester from a sportswear company for the British Textile Biennale. I am doing some disperse dye prints which I have never done before and am loving it. The disgusting polyester is transformed and I’m making work about the universal obsession with wearing football shirts at all ages. I am putting myself in there as the grandma who does not really get it. Not sure how it will pan out in the end, but that’s the fun, I am going to call it ‘Polyester United, Circa 2025’

10. Anything else that I’ve failed to ask you that you would like to include ?

No, I think you have covered good things. Not sure if I have given you too much or not enough. Let me know if you need more, or less! I just love being able to work on it all full time now, it feels such a privilege. I read an article about a 90-year-old lady artist who was still working daily, and it made me decide to leave my job at 59, after 30 years because I reckoned, I could have another 30 years as an artist – a second career. 5 years in its going well.

Thanks again Jane, for sharing your descriptive and interesting stories with Fishinkblog. It’s been an absolute pleasure looking through your work and discovering more about your working methods and ideas behind your artwork. To see more of Jane’s work check out her site here.

Any thoughts readers ? Please leave your comments below. Thanks Craig