My previous work developed from an assignment I wrote for students last year, about status and perceived hierarchies in the applied arts, specifically wrapping. Most cultures tend to wrap up objects of importance: in Japan they have special tea caddies with fabulous covers of silk and rich embroideries which form part of the tea ceremony rituals. I researched and experimented with several kinds of textile: screen-printed and stitched calico, felt and knit, and combined them with the simplest of vessel forms, to see what this kind of embellishment said about vulnerability, preciousness, protection, perhaps even a sacred or a magical dimension.

Then I was seduced by cheap acrylic funky wools into knitting ‘bowls to contain bowls’! But the perceived status thing does seem to work: separately each piece is ‘less’ special than the two together