Are You Lost? Kate O’Farrell Listens to the Land

In a peat-stained hanging that once lay buried in bog water, in rust-licked fibres and hand-felted wool sheared from local flocks, textile artist Kate O’Farrell conjures a landscape that speaks through cloth. Created as part of Are You Lost? - a poetic, place-based installation by artist Rob St John for the Nature Calling programme - Kate’s three sculptural hangings form a map of the Forest of Bowland made not with ink, but with bracken, gorse, charcoal and time.

Kate O'Farrell - Textiles development : Are You Lost? Nature Calling 2025

This is not a map to follow, but one to feel. Its contours are stitched with traditional techniques: spinning, felting, embroidery and dyeing drawn from Bowland’s textile heritage. Its pigments come from the land itself - minerals ground from rock, charcoal burned from heather, colours coaxed from hawthorn and rowan. One cloth was contact printed with plant matter gathered on walks; another hand-felted from wool Kate carded in her studio, evoking the slow, muscular rhythms of rural labour. Together, they echo Bowland’s layered histories of craft, industry, migration and movement.

Rob St John - Are You Lost? - Nature Calling 2025. Photo credit: Jack Bolton.

Kate, who trained at Goldsmiths and is one of the UK’s few backstrap weavers, learned this ancient loomless technique from master makers in Mexico and Guatemala. Now based once again in Lancashire, she runs Greystones Textiles and Cedar Farm Gallery, curating and creating pieces that honour slowness, materiality, and place. Whether in her custom waxed cotton bags or large-scale installation work, her textiles always listen - to the land, to the hands that shape it, to the overlooked stories rooted in soil and fibre.

In Are You Lost?, her work sits within sound and film, forming a sensory fabric of the Bowland landscape. These aren’t just artworks - they’re weather systems. Memory. Shelter.

In light of her new work, we were pleased to be able to catch up with Kate for a '5 Minutes with a Friend' interview:

Portrait of Kate O'Farrell. Courtesy of the artist.

Kate, what is your first memory of a textile?

I used to have a lot of cuddly toys that always had to travel with me, and one I particularly loved was knitted by my Mum. It looked a little like a Russian doll in soft pastel shades. I get a lot of joy seeing my little niece carrying it around today.

What you love about Textiles?

I studied my BA in Textiles at Goldsmiths, London and was on the last ever Textiles course, completing in 2009. As there weren’t many Textiles students left, we’d have to do group crits with the Fine Art students and they’d ask “but why use textiles for that concept?” I found it so difficult to explain at the time! Now it seems so silly to defend an inherent love of textiles that just runs through me, and most people who decide to dedicate their studies to it.

My Mum and Dad were both craftspeople. Mum made cushions and bags from screen printed cotton velvet and embroidered raw silk, and my Dad was a ceramicist. I have always been surrounded by texture and detail and luscious worked-into fibres. 

I love the richness and depth of textiles, and have always loved natural fibres and traditional processes. I love to think of the work that goes into it’s creation as a piece of cloth and the level of care and time that’s been given to it. It becomes a living object, and can always be worked into further or transformed into something else. I could happily look at a piece of hand spun, handwoven fabric for hours. I love the variation.

Kate O'Farrell weaving on a traditional backstrap loom.

What is your Ideal place to create/work?

I would like to say my home studio, but it’s far too chaotic! I love to work outdoors. My work for Are You Lost? was made in my back yard garden. I was working with my hands using traditional processes and natural materials I’d gathered from the Bowland landscape. 

I have a very sporadic brain and find it very grounding and meditative this way. It helps to focus everything onto the work being created and puts a little of the environment into it!

I’m also a backstrap weaver, and where I learnt in Mexico, outdoors was how it was done- a group of women, latched to a tree or post, creating textiles with just a bundle of sticks. 

Kate O'Farrell, working off grid, surrounded by woods, on the doorstep of @gladhut.

Can you share something that has inspired you recently?

I took a trip to India earlier this year that really inspired me. A self-directed textile pilgrimage to Kutch in Gujarat to visit the many different villages where a variety of heritage crafts and textiles are thriving. Places like LLDC (The Living and Learning Design Centre) and Khamir Craft Society continue to highlight the rich textile history and stunning variety of skills employed by indigenous peoples across the region, that have been passed down through multiple generations and could be at risk of being lost if they aren’t maintained.

 The radical ‘Home spun for freedom’ movement led by Gandhi called for those people to employ their skills and create a new cloth for social change. It really highlighted, for me, the importance of care and knowledge of making that helps give us strength in our traditions, but also to maintain a connection to where we are now. Gandhi visited Lancashire during this time, which inspired me to use Indian Kadhi fabric as a base for the installation work.

What is your most cherished textile?

My most cherished textile is a huipil I bought 10 years ago from the small Mexican mountain village of Xochislauhuaca. Made on a backstrap loom from beautifully fine hand spun white cotton, with intricate patterns made using a single supplementary thread. I spent a wonderful day at this tiny cultural centre, watching a small group of Amuzgo women spin and weave their stunning work in the quiet shade, and it reset things for me. 

Where did you learn your craft?

I adopted a level of meticulous care and consideration towards my craft from my parents. They’ve always applied such a high standard to everything they do. I learnt about natural dyeing and Backstrap Weaving, which became an Integral to my practice and love of heritage crafts, where I spent 6 months travelling across tribal regions of Mexico and Guatemala to learn about the indigenous weaving craft and how the techniques, symbolism and language changed between peoples, often transcending modern day borders. 

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Further Information:

Nature Calling : A programme of new art commissions by the National Landscapes Association.

Greystones by Kate O'Farrell

@greystones_textiles

Key Dates for viewing the installation by Kate O'Farrell and Rob St John:

28th June, Pendle Festival of Culture, Nelson (Building Bridges Nelson, 20 Scotland Rd, Nelson BB9 7UU)

2nd - 3rd August, Jinny’s Barn, Dunsop Bridge, Clitheroe

30th - 31st August, Gisburn Forest Hub, Clitheroe

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Image Credits:

Lead Image: Kate O'Farrell - Textiles development : Are You Lost? Nature Calling 2025