Saturday 10 February 2024, Meet Anne Tomlin

17:00 - 18:00 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)

Hosted on Zoom by Anne Tomlin

Anne has a first-class degree in Textiles from UCA Farnham. She then studied Millinery at The London College of Fashion. Anne now specialises in studying flowers and capturing their detail using silk and paper clay and both French and Japanese tools with techniques she has developed over many years. Teaching is important to her in passing on skills she has acquired and continuing her quest to raise awareness of the natural world and the importance of bio-diversity, so evident in her complex, detailed studies of flowers.

 Anne now works to commission and collaborates with designers, artists and museums as well as developing her own work for exhibitions. Her book ‘Making Silk Flowers” is to be published at the end of October.

Meet the Maker event description

Anne will give an illustrated talk about her life in textiles, from silk weaving to a busy 25 years making hats and the last ten years as a specialist flower-maker. She will describe the highs and lows of working within the fashion world, designing two collections a year, balancing hand-made with factory-made, and creating hats for many prestigious stores.

She will talk about how she transitioned to focus on her love of nature and making flowers and the slow development of the techniques she uses from drawing and observing flowers and using both French and Japanese flower tools to capture the intricacies of nature in 3-D. Colour is essential in her work, and she will talk about dyes and their application, building colour and creating effects. Anne constantly pushes the boundaries to develop her techniques and processes to remain open-minded and experimental as much as possible.

She will describe the fabrics she uses, the process of stiffening and shaping petals to produce her representations of the natural world that are as faithful to the real thing as possible, and she will talk about how she approaches each new project/commission and collaboration with artists and designers.

The session will introduce you to her practice and proposed activity for the upcoming workshop, Saturday 25 & Sunday 26 May 2024, Textile Flowers (Silk Abaca Rose) with Anne Tomlin.  There will be time for questions at the end of her talk.

If you would like to join the Textile Flowers (Silk Abaca Rose) workshop, please book to attend at least 4 weeks ahead of time to ensure you receive the materials pack that is essential for participation in the workshop. The talk is included in the cost of the workshop.

Event recording
The event will be recorded and a recording sent to ticket holders after the event. Please allow 7 workings days for us to send you the recording.

Cancellation policy
All Meet the Maker sessions are non-refundable.