Julie Hand is a self-taught artist working in textile arts such as embroidery, knitting, quilt-making, and she also specialises in creating mosaics.
She says: “I arrived at the door of mosaics over twenty years ago, to embrace the challenge of transfer from soft textile to unyielding substance.”
She has found her talents in mosaic and loves to share this with her WEA students.
Julie expresses her feeling for mosaic, saying, “It is the perfect art form for me. In the placing of the tesserae upon the worked surface I can feel the rhythm of the image. I revel in the depths of colour and texture. My personal aim is the transference of an inorganic rigid substance into a resonating, emotive and living piece of art.”
A recent WEA course that Julie taught was called 'Creative Arts and Crafts'. It ran for just under six months - one of our longer courses - so that students could access a range of art and craft in that period.
Whilst the course was running, Julie helped her students to enter the Topps Tiles Mosaic Competition and was delighted when student, Sheila Butler was awarded Regional winner for her amazing entry of a mosaic tiger, shown here.
Julie says, "When I was notified of the winner, I was given an overall comment by the judge, a Mr David Tuhill M.A (RCA), who said, 'It is said that good things come in small packages and that is certainly true in the case of the five outstanding mosaics submitted by tutor Julie Hand from the workshops held in St Mary's Community Centre, Pontefract. In my experience over the years of student work submitted for Topps Tiles award I would have to say that this collection is of the highest standard I have seen'."
To find similar courses on offer from WEA Yorkshire and Humber this term go to our online course search. To see some of Julie’s work, check out her website.