Friday Feature Artist

Danish-born textile artist Jette Clover reflects on four decades of art quiltmaking – from curating Europe's first art quilt exhibitions to creating intimate, text-based collages of paper, cloth and paint. Now based in Antwerp, she discusses her daily fifteen-minute collage ritual, her fascination with weathered city walls and handwriting, and the restraint she calls "a little lipstick&q...

American collage and installation artist Clare Celeste Börsch, based in Berlin, creates immersive works from found and open-source naturalist illustrations, exploring biodiversity, memory and loss. In this conversation, she traces her evolution from paper collage to large-scale installation, and speaks candidly about motherhood, climate anxiety, and learning to value her work as her practice has g...

Kerri Hollingsworth is a fibre artist and furniture upholsterer based in regional Victoria. Surrounded by nature, it finds its way into every piece she makes. In this conversation, Kerry talks about her new course, Threads of Connection – exploring what it means to teach intuition, work with salvaged materials, and trust that creativity is not something you find, but something you unlock. Visit ou...

Donna Watson is a professional mixed media artist with over 45 years of practice, known for work that explores memory, identity, and the passage of time. In this conversation with Angela Truscott, Donna reflects on two decades of painting for sales before finding her own voice, and shares why helping artists go deeper into who they are has become the most meaningful work of her career. Visit our w...

Vietnamese–American artist Kenny Nguyen creates sculptural paintings that blur the boundaries between textile, painting and form. Working with torn silk soaked in pigment, his practice explores memory, migration and transformation. In this conversation, Kenny reflects on material sensitivity, cultural identity, and the quiet courage it takes to deconstruct and rebuild – both in art and in life. Vi...

Emily Stubbs is a contemporary British ceramicist based in York, whose vessels begin not with clay, but with paper. Drawing on collage, monoprinting, and an instinct for bold colour and graphic contrast, Emily builds fragmented, layered vessels that are entirely her own. This conversation explores the crossover between two-dimensional thinking and three-dimensional making – and what it means to wo...

Nicola Bennett is a New Zealand painter, galleried artist, and teacher whose abstract work draws from the colours, textures, and sensory pleasures of the edible world. In this conversation, Nicola shares how flavour and felt experience become the doorway into abstract painting – and how repetition, mark making, and a willingness to stay with uncertainty are what ultimately reveal your own unmistak...

In this special 200th episode, the Take Two team steps back to reflect on the voices, insights and patterns woven through years of artist interviews. Drawing from a rich archive of conversations across textile and fibre practices, they explore the inner critic, the messy middle, and the search for authentic voice – offering a rare, collective portrait of what it truly means to live a creative life...

Sarah Brayer is a Kyoto-based artist working across painting, woodblock printmaking, and washi papermaking. Her practice explores light, impermanence, and the inner life through meditative mark-making. In this conversation, she reflects on four decades of integrating meditation with art-making and the launch of her course, Art as Meditation. The episode offers a quiet, considered look at how still...

Jane Walkley is a Leeds-based artist working across tapestry, mould making, and casting. Her practice explores memory, labour, and regeneration within post-industrial sites. In this conversation, she reflects on her research at Sunny Bank Mill, where material, rhythm, and lived experience converge. The episode offers a considered look at process-led making and how meaning develops through repetiti...

Australian artist Shona Wilson creates delicate, ephemeral works in collaboration with nature, transforming found materials into moments of quiet wonder. With a practice spanning three decades, she reflects on attention, scale and connection – inviting us to slow down and rediscover the extraordinary within the everyday. This episode is a gentle meditation on making, presence and belonging. Visit...

In this episode, we chat with Hungarian textile artist Kinga Földi creates delicate silk sculptures shaped by pintuck, origami and a deep attentiveness to nature. After years in fashion, costume and theatre design, she turned to freestanding sculptural work as a slower, more personal form of expression. This discussion explores material transformation, patient making, and the search for forms that...

In this episode, ceramic artist Juz Kitson creates visceral, hybrid sculptures that blur the line between human, animal and object. Working across porcelain, found materials and installation, her practice is both technically rigorous and deeply intuitive. In this conversation, Juz reflects on process, materiality, and what it means to reinvent tradition while building a sustainable creative life....

In conversation, mixed media artist and educator Robert Lee Davis reflects on creativity as a deeply human, accessible practice grounded in memory, observation and play. Working with found materials and everyday fragments, he reveals how art can soften the world, invite reflection, and reconnect us to ourselves. This conversation offers a gentle yet powerful reminder that creativity begins whereve...

After decades working in functional ceramics, Ann Weber shifted her practice toward monumental cardboard sculpture – transforming a humble, discarded material into powerful, anthropomorphic forms. In this conversation, she reflects on material, scale, persistence, and purpose, offering a deeply honest look at what it means to build a life in art. Visit our website to explore our courses , or dive...

Textile artist Sue Hotchkis transforms everyday decay into captivating, layered artworks that blur the line between 2D and 3D. Through photography, printing, dyeing, and stitching, she reimagines textures, rust, weathered walls, and peeling paint into sculptural fabrics. This episode explores her fearless experimentation, intuitive process, and how she finds beauty in imperfection, chance, and the...

In this episode, tufting artist Melissa Monroe creates exuberant textile works that sit somewhere between furniture, sculpture and wall-based art. In this conversation, she shares how colour, character and everyday life shape her practice – and how instinct, material knowledge and a willingness to loosen up allow each piece to become itself fully. Visit our website to explore our courses , or dive...

In this episode, Sophie Edwards speaks with French artist Stéphanie Devaux about the quiet dialogue between writing and textile. Working across calligraphy, embroidery and artist books, Stéphanie transforms text into tactile form. She reflects on learning from rare books in Paris, the meditative rhythm of stitch and script, and the moment when ink and thread dissolve into one visual language. Visi...

In this episode, we hear how Japanese designer Kazuya Nohara and his partner Miki work with traditional Hontate indigo fermentation in rural Japan, creating hand-sewn garments dyed in living vats he tends himself. In this thoughtful conversation, he reflects on learning to release control, building a business at nature’s pace, and seeing indigo not just as colour, but as culture, partnership and p...

In this episode, textile artist Shelly Goldsmith works across hand weaving, digital cloth and installation to explore inheritance, motherhood and the origins of self. In conversation with Jo Wright, she reflects on slow process, psychological theory and the courage to trust intuition. This thoughtful episode moves between the intimate and the cosmic, revealing how cloth becomes a vehicle for life’...

In this episode, textile artist Julian Jamaal Jones reimagines quilting as contemporary fine art – bold, abstract works built from sketches, printed cloth, and rhythmic stitching. In conversation with Angela Truscott, Julian reflects on making through grief, family lineage, and the freedom of abstraction as protection. A thoughtful episode about taste, confidence, and building a signature language...

In this episode, psychologist, writer and textile maker Nicole Nehrig joins Jo Wright for a wide-ranging conversation on the social, historical, and cultural power of making. Drawing from her book and lived experience, Nicole reflects on craft as a therapeutic practice, a cultural language, and a tool for connection, protest and meaning-making across time. Visit our website to explore our courses...

In this episode, quilter and multidisciplinary artist Casey Engel moves between fibre, ceramics, printmaking and painting – chasing that “magnificent wobble” only handwork can hold. In this conversation, she reflects on embracing imperfection, trusting risk, and making work that resists utility while staying deeply intimate. From thrifted textiles to residencies without internet, Casey shares a pr...

In this episode, Claire Benn joins Deborah White to reflect on handwriting as an expressive, material practice. Working across ink, paper and textiles, Claire speaks about text as mark, texture and gesture rather than language. The conversation explores learning through repetition, suspending judgement, and how slowing down can open new creative pathways. Claire also shares insights into the ideas...

As a new brand (and new era!) of the business begins, founder Angela Truscott speaks to Creative Director Jo Wright about building an inclusive creative community rooted in education, quality, and care. Angela shares the personal and professional journey behind Take Two – from leaving corporate life to championing artists, students, a caring team, and collaboration. This episode offers rare insigh...