"I have always lived in the Wakefield district and have always loved art but never saw it as some way of making a living, especially growing up in the 1970’s. You were expected to go get a job, so I went into the textile industry like my mother and my aunty. Then during covid I thought it was now or never, so I applied to University for Fine arts and crafts and got a place. I learnt myself to do free motion sewing or and it was like drawing with thread. Better known as Textile Art. I researched into this field more and got better at it in my last two years at Uni and put my final exhibition together about the history of the textile industry in Northern England. Depicting my history and the children of the cotton industry as ghosts on a see through sheer fabric that when it was dark and a light was shone on them lit up. Making them look like the ghosts they were. This took many hours to produce as I was working of very fine fabric and a thick thread that had to be over stitched."

"My other pieces were made up using sustainably sourced unwanted or second hand fabric that I hand dyed. This for me helps with the deeper meaning of the pieces I make, along with the history I am trying to tell. There is enough second hand unwanted cotton fabric out there without me buying new. I also like to use sustainable linen as linen does not use as much resources as cotton does. Many thousands of tonnes per year of fabric is sent to land fills each year, instead of it being reused. Buying new is easy, going to a charity shop and buying second hand is better for my business and I give back to the charity also."

"My artwork is always story based, I cannot produce work unless I have a story to tell. It helps bring the images out of my head on what I want to see in the finished pieces."

"I went to Uni at Doncaster University Suite, but never felt at home there. My home is the Wakefield District. I was born and grew up here. I didn't choose it, it chose me. It has everything I need, well apart from a good art shop, I have to buy online or go on the train to Leeds for the professional products I require. As all my pieces start off as watercolours then get traced onto the fabric. I also chose to have my first solo exhibition in Featherstone. As the story i was telling was about Featherstone’s buildings all on recycled fabric. I am proud of my roots of being from the Wakefield District."

"I have three favourites, The young woman and the old lady both sewing their story below on 17th Century apron that I also made. The bottom of both aprons are dyed using natural earth pigments. The old lady story, along the bottom are the children of the mill, where she may have worked as a young child. The reason for the 17th Century apron was because is was the same apron that was worn in the cotton mills of the time. The young and old lady shows how a woman went in to the factories and the old lady was when she retired if she was lucky. The story each apron tells is of working in a sewing factory and the history of cotton mills. Each women is sewing their story. These two pieces were part of my final exhibition for Uni and The Miner was for a exhibition at Featherstone Art and Photography Exhibition. The miner took quite a bit of research especially getting the right poem to tell the story of the man going down the pit each day. The background was all hand sewn and the poem and the miner was done using free motion sewing on a sewing machine. This piece sold and the money went to The Featherstone Mayors Charity."

"Since finishing Uni, I wanted to take a breath and think about what I wanted to produce and be proud of it going forward. I have been working on producing a project based around the industries in the Wakefield District. So if anyone out there wants to house it please do get in-touch. It will be a one of a kind series of textile art works."

To discover more about Tracy and her artwork, please visit: Instagram