I came across Lisa Connolly’s work at this year’s Knitting and Stitching Show in Alexandra Palace. After a day of elbowing round exhibits and queuing for tea, her stark yet glamorous, olde-worldy yet contemporary textiles caught my eye. I managed to track her down. . .
Katie: I love your work! How would you describe it?
Lisa: I love to immerse myself in the exploration of the strange and unusual. I enjoy conveying tales of the mundane and transporting them into the realms of the extraordinary. I believe my use of mixed media gives a quirky edge to my work, along with the humour I instill in my characters.
K: Your style is a pretty different way of using embroidery . . .
L: It’s a reaction to the classic old style of stitch that is banal and over-produced. I’m striving to create a very new style of portraiture using unconventional methods of stitch, in reaction to that.
K: So what’s with all the ladies?
L: I think my portraits feature girls with attitude. My ladies look dark and sinister. They are a comical reaction to the classic portraiture of the grandeur.
I’ve never consciously decided to focus on imagery of women. My first introduction
to illustration was fashion illustration where I was drawing females on a constant basis. Because of this I am familiar with the female face and figure and so it’s natural for me to draw them.
I also think you can play around with the female face a lot more than the male.
K: What techniques and products do you use?
L: My stitched portraits are created using masses of black thread on calico. I achieve my stitch by playing about with thread tensions and using a combination of free stitching on the machine and hand stitching. My machine is nothing particularly special, it’s a PFAFF Hobby and I love it!
Screen printing is also a big part of my work. I translate the stitch pictures to fashion apparel by printing onto t-shirts and hope to extend that to homeware this year by screenprinting bed spreads, curtains and wallpaper. I also print all my own swing tags and bags, so every aspect of my work really is a one-off.
The last area I dabble in is printing onto ceramics. I absolutely love this as it looks almost like the images have been stitched directly onto the porcelain. At present I 
am developing entire crockery sets for sale.
K: What inspires you?
L: I am inspired by people’s stories and what lies beneath the surface. My degree project was based on Kim Noble, a practicing artist with multiple personality disorder. She has an array of different personalities that change throughout the day. When her personality changes, so do her name, age and sex. She changes her clothes too! Twelve of her personalities paint, each one in a completely different style. This inspired me to create six different illustration styles: I experimented in paint, food dyes, screen printing, repeat pattern printing, mixed media collage and stitch. Without doubt, the majority of people were perplexed by the unusual stitch I achieved and so I have decided to continue with it.
There are many artists whom I adore, to name but a few are Lowri Davies, Claire Coles, David Fleck, Anna Fredriksson, Lizzie Allen, Julie Arkell, Alice Kettle, Julie Verhoeven, Tim Burton, Tim Walker, Vivienne Westwood . . . I could go on and on!
K: Can you tell me about the business you’re setting up?
L: At the end of my degree year I won a bursary from the Laura Ashley foundation, which is linked with my college, West Wales School of the Arts. Each year they give the bursary to one fashion and one textiles student.
The bursary has allowed me to buy equipment and supplies for starting my own business. I have also been assigned a personal mentor to help with business advice.
My business plan is to extend my illustrations for commercial application. Everything I produce is handmade solely by myself.
It’s quite hard starting out, the area of business is all a bit baffling to me but I am determined to educate myself in this area. At present I am practicing in my hometown of Waterford, Ireland.
I have just set up a studio in town along with two fellow artists. The building we obtained had previously been inhabited by squatters who had destroyed the place in a house fire. Waterford council has rented the building to us on the premise we restored the house to its original state. We spent three months during the summer renovating the house and now as a result we have a lovely artists’ haven where we can hide away and create lovely things!
K: So what’s next? Do you feel positive about your future as an illustrator?
L: Incredibly! I have received some amazing feedback about my work which I am always taken aback by.
I know I can continue creating forever because I have such a passion for it which is a very comforting thought. The only thing that worries me is actually getting my work ‘out there.’ You can make work forever you know, but if no one ever sees it then it’s pretty defeatist really.
All I want is to make a comfortable living from what I love doing, I would be the happiest person in the world if I could achieve that.
Lisa’s blog is here.
I can totally relate to the last line of this, as I’m sure a lot of people can! Great article