A bit about how I got here

My name is Abi Collins and I love the sciences, especially biology, and even more especially the hidden worlds that are only revealed by looking very closely.

If you got a thrill from the first time you saw onion cells under a microscope, then you'll have a pretty good understanding of where my passions lie.

After a long career in science teaching I began to think about new directions. A lifelong lover of wool and the fibre arts, I sought a way of making the unseen, under-appreciated and over-looked wonders of the biological world more visible, through representing them as hand-made textiles.

This is when I discovered the work of Nehemiah Grew. Although my work is inspired by growing organisms, Grew Textile is actually named after him.

From STEM to textiles

Why Grew Textile rather than Grow Textile?

Grew was a pioneering botanist working in England in the late 1600s. He is known as the ‘father of plant anatomy’, as he was the first to observe and suggest that plants were made of organised, identifiable tissues. He used one of the early microscopes and made hugely detailed anatomical drawings of what he saw.

This work inspired me first into stranded knitting design. Here you can draw with wool, create the cells, but also connect one to the next, like in plant tissue, by passing the strands of wool behind the work. The stitches, like cells are dependent on one another to create the fabric. The cells themselves are simple shapes but en masse they have a distinct identity and by subtle differences in size and proportions create huge variety.

Then I went researching down into the soil and found mycorrhizal fungi dancing in an intimate relationship with plant roots; seeking out new connections as they give and receive important biological chemicals.

I saw a connection between wool and fungi. In wet felting as you work with the fine fibres they move and connect, but in a way that is determined by their individual structure, by the physical environment and your interaction as you work with this amazing material. It truly is a dance, and when the dance is over you have made something which is unrepeatable.

I am working to create small, intimate pieces of art that provoke discussion about the microscopic living world and the importance of sustaining plants and the soil on which we all depend.

My pieces are 100% compostable.