Glynis Rose

I have had a passionate interest in design and working with textiles since childhood. I was taught to sew, embroider and knit by my grandmother. Through practice I became competent in using her old treadle sewing machine and learnt to make my own clothes.

I started my career as an Art teacher and went to teach in a rural community in Guyana, South America. This was a three year contract with the Guyanese government. I set up and managed the Art and Craft department in a Community High School. Local crafts people were employed to teach the children skills in leather work, basketry, furniture making and pottery.  We collected clay from the rivers and built our own brick oven for firing the pots.  We harvested palm fronds and vines from the forest to process into raffia and make frames for weaving into baskets and building furniture. This was a most valuable experience.

My next teaching contract was in Kenya. Here I also had the privilege of working with women's co-operative groups. I learnt how to card and weave wool from herds of sheep kept on the foothills of Mt. Kenya. I learnt how to dye the wool using indigenous plants and then how to weave it into blankets and rugs.

The next stage in my life was to become a mother so I took some time out from my career to be at home with my two children before they started school.

On returning to work I took on a new role as a Health Promotion Officer, working for the Northumberland NHS. I designed and ran health related training programmes in schools and the local community. I had a particular interest in using the ‘Arts’ to promote health and coordinated a number of drama, music and craft projects with health related themes.

During this period I developed an interest in complementary therapy and trained as a practitioner in Aura Soma, Ayervedic massage, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and Yoga.

All this a time I never lost my interest in working with textiles and continued to develop my skills by attending courses in silk painting, batik, screen printing and block printing. This inspired me to create some very individual pieces of work, some of which I have successfully sold. Recently I have attended a course on lino printing and making collographs at Horsley Printers. The pieces I've created lent themselves beautifully to embellishing with silk, embroidery stitches, sequins and beads, some of which were recently exhibited at the Biscuit Factory in Newcastle. I have also exhibited at the Customs House in South Shields and the Bamboo Gallery in the Turks and Caicos Islands. I am now a member of the Hexham Embroiders Guild and serve on their committee helping to develop and catalogue their small library. I am presently running Vedic Art courses and teaching yoga.

My intention is to set up in business both as a freelance textile designer and as a consultant. The consultancy work will focus on setting up social enterprise projects. I have a particular interest in supporting women's groups in developing countries.