Cindy Watkins is an award-winning artist whose stunning textile work has been recognised both here in Australia and internationally. Using her sewing machine as a tool for free-motion stitching, she transforms silk and cotton into unique works of art. Deeply inspired by the natural world, many of her materials are hand-dyed using leaves and bark sourced from Tasmania’s native bushland, adding an organic depth to her pieces.
Cindy has always been an artist. As a child she loved to draw, moving on to watercolours and pastels as an adult. She was introduced to sewing by her mum, and later discovered art quilting through an article about art quilter Helen Godden. When she studied for her Arts Diploma she explored glass making, jewellery making and printmaking, all the while creating art quilts. Cindy was exploring ways to support herself financially through her art. As any creative person will attest, this isn’t an easy task — the creative part of the brain doesn’t like to think about marketing, sales, or budgets. It doesn’t necessarily want to worry about social media, or spreadsheets. Which means there is often a bit of a process learning how to run a business to sell art. Cindy found direction by reading Art, Money, Success by Maria Brophy. The book teaches the importance of creating a style of art that is unique, so that people can see the art and know exactly who the artist behind the piece is.
Letter to the Editor
And so started the 5,000 Trees Project. Cindy had already created a few tree pieces, which she loved doing, and which had proven to be popular. She had also been reading The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, which spoke of how trees communicate and support each other through their root systems. If you’ve seen any of Cindy’s quilts, you’ll see that interconnectedness of the root systems between her trees (and more recently, her mushrooms, with their mycelium connections). But Cindy wanted to do more than just make trees. She decided that for every tree stitched and sold, she would donate $2 to Landcare Tasmania for local environmental projects.
The trees are mostly stitched on cotton fabric, and occasionally linen, with many layers to build up the colour. As the project developed, she began to introduce hand-dyed silk using leaves she collects from the forest on her property. It is a great connection between the environment and the work, and means that everyone receives a little of the Tasmanian bush when they purchase one of Cindy’s pieces. She also includes animals amongst her trees, her favourite being wombats and blue wrens, but there are also plenty of ravens in the mix, and scarlet robins, and thylacines.
More recently, Cindy has begun creating realistic free-style embroidery after taking classes with the UK’s renowned textile artist Alison Holt. These are part of Cindy’s 5,000 Trees Project, though they are very different from her stylised trees.
The 5,000 Trees Project is very nearly coming to an end, and Cindy is planning something special with the last handful of trees left to stitch.
If you’d like to learn more about Cindy’s work, come along to her artist talk on Sunday, 29 June, at 11 am. Bookings are essential, and you can do so at https://www.trybooking.com/CZAUJ
Arts Deloraine’s Artist Talks program aims to foster connections, inspire creativity, and support local artists.
