This year, through unexpected circumstances, I found myself in the fortunate position of being a visitor to Cornwall Open Studios rather than a participant. I attended 2 workshops, both involving stitching of some sort: Alison Mahoney’s Printmaking and Bookbinding day course and Sandra Hardy’s Machine Embroidery 2 hour session where I learned a lot from both workshops (see attached pics). As well as the workshops, I visited many individual artists’ studios as well as shared venues. Here are the 7 artists I found most memorable (the numbers in brackets correspond to their listing in the catalogue and not their age!)
- Elaine Turnbull(77) exuberant paintings, full of human emotions, some playful and humorous, others subtle and sobering,
fabric pieces 
- made up sections with screen printed paper
but all full of highly original texture, rhythm and colour.
- Paul Wadsworth (165) for his expansive acrylic / oil canvases, heavily textured and full of joy.
- Esther Connon (101) makes hand bound and screen printed books with narrative based illustrations of rare quality.
- Susanna Bauer, (159) for her delicate but exquisitely sculpted and stitched leaves.
- Rebecca Ball (23) produces one-off pieces of stitched paper map collages and embroidered birds in migration.
- Daniel Cole (25) is obviously a lover of nature producing small oil paintings and sketch books full of bird studies.
- Nina Ducker (40) wall hung ceramic pieces often in multiples, inspired by sea and landscape. A ceramicist with a painter’s sensibility!
Caro Woods MA 