Roanna Wells is a fine artist who lives and works in the South Yorkshire city of Sheffield. While studying for a degree in Embroidery at the Manchester School of Art, Roanna discovered a love for mark making through drawing and stitch. Today, this passion for intricate detail continues to underpin her artistic approach.
What inspires me…
When I was working a lot with textiles I found that, rather than textile designers, artists who would draw contemporary pieces and artists that created huge sculptures really inspired me, so I would translate this into my stitch. Nowadays, I take inspiration from many places, but generally it’s the physical process of what I do that drives my creativity.
My workspace…
I love to surround myself with interesting things, I have lots of bird feathers and leaves pinned up that I have collected while out walking and I have a large and ever growing collection – both in size and numbers – of indoor plants around my studio. My desks (I have a few of them) are either covered in little paintings I’ve done or ceramics that my friends have made, oh and lots and lots of water ring marks from coffee cups and water pots.
How I use my Silvine Originals Project book…
I’m currently using one for a specific studio-based writing project. It’s a little different to what I usually do, but the idea’s still linked to my mark making. It’s a collaboration with a friend of mine based on the lost art of handwriting and handwritten letters. I’ve taken a poem that I’m writing out and repeating over and over, exploring the idea that the more you repeat something the more ingrained and instinctual it becomes. My Project book is great for this process; the paper is really thick and soft to write on, which makes the repetitiveness of repeating the poem a really enjoyable experience.
My approach to the creative process…
Because my work can be extremely time consuming, I have a lot of time to think of ideas and plan them out in my head. For me, this tends to work perfectly as it means that one project rolls on from the next. Of course, like any artist I have suffered from creative block, and that’s the interesting thing about the creative process, that it can come and go and have its ups and downs. You just have to learn to deal with it in your own way and get back on it.
You can visit Roanna’s website here or her Instagram page here.
