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The Yaffingale

I originally trained in Metal Art as part of a women into non-traditional skills project in Edinburgh, where I then spent many years as part of a Women’s Welding Collective, creating intricate and time-consuming sculptures and bespoke furniture.

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After  20 years of not making, due to many reasons including working with recycled design in South America for 7 years, and illness, I couldn't ignore the creature that kept tapping at a door in my head asking to be let out. and so  in 2022 i began to explore.

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Now based in North Wales I'm a self-taught textile sculpture artist working with craft techniques within fine-art sculptures and like to mix wood and metal with fabric, spending many hours hand-embroidering  to create texture, or tell a story. 

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I blend history and modernity with countless hours of craftsmanship to create fine art sculptures that reflect a world that both is and isn’t ours. Hidden stories, women's experiences, language evolution, and the complex interplay of loss and gain are woven into unsettling yet contemplative pieces. Half- Creatures caught between realities come to life in sculptural work using mainly recycled and antique fabrics blended with hand embroidery and the written word looking at lost stories, words, history and its resonances within our modern world.

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​I'm interested in history and modernity, which stories get to be told, and who is telling the tale, both within fiction and society.                                                                            My artist’s name is The Yaffingale, which is an archaic name for the green woodpecker.