A day in the life of an artist: Helen Riddle

Helen Riddle is a textile artist and Guild member based in West Yorkshire. In the Winter issue of 'The Quilter' magazine we delve deeper into her work, and the quilt she created as part of a broader spectrum of work exploring memory and ageing. Here she shares what a typical day looks like.

Normally I head to the studio early as I’m very much a morning person so I cycle in about 7am before the rush-hour traffic builds up. The first thing to do then is make a mug of tea – breakfast can follow much later but I can’t function without my morning cuppa.

I usually have at least two different projects or pieces on the go at any time and try to schedule them so that one is at the planning stage while I’m actually constructing the other.

For me, planning involves research, drawing spider diagrams of the whole project and then individual pieces, working on possible ideas in a sketchbook, creating an order of play for each piece – so I think about which processes I need to go through before I can move on to the next. I used to dive straight in, but now I realise that good, initial thinking means less time wasted having to backtrack later. I find the planning really exciting and intellectually stimulating as it involves lots of problem solving.

By contrast the making phase is my happy place, whether it’s sampling or moving on to final pieces. I’m lucky that my practice involves many different skills – drawing, printmaking, felting, hand stitch and free-motion embroidery – and I’m always looking at new ones: over lockdown I made my first quilt and last year I started combining textiles with lime mortar. The variety means that I can be kinder to my body as I’m using different muscles and not tensing up over my sewing machine all day.

I tend to head home mid-afternoon and then reluctantly sit at the computer and do the admin – writing proposals and funding applications, dealing with social media posts or writing interpretation and publicity materials for forthcoming exhibitions. Like most creative people, this is not my favourite part, but it has to be done – I just wish I was a bit more organised! The evenings tend to be time to relax with a bit of hand stitch, maybe on small pieces as part of my commercial work.

Every day is different though – this week, I’ve run my weekly textile group, been on a research visit to a local shoddy mill, done a morning’s textile conservation work at a local gallery, prepared materials for a felting workshop I’m teaching next month – and had a meeting with the editor of The Quilter!

www.helenriddleartist.co.uk