Midge Gourlay, Scottish artist.

http://www.portappinstudio.co.uk/artists/midge/biography

Please visit her website, there are many examples of her extraordinary work.
Midge Gourlay is a textile artist and teacher, trained at Glasgow School of Art and specialising in embroidered and woven textiles.

Her work is mainly inspired by West Highland land and seascapes and by regular visits to the Corbières region of southwest France. She uses techniques which include dyeing, fabric manipulation with machine embroidery, paint and handmade silk paper.
At the start of the twentieth century a group of young women worked and studied together in Glasgow. They specialized in needlecraft, embroidery, jewelry making, metal craft and design. Their work was intricate and decorative. These women became affectionately known as ‘The Glasgow Girls’, they were contemporaries of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his friend and fellow architect/artist Herbert McNair. Two of the leading lights of this movement were sisters Margaret and Frances MacDonald who married Mackintosh and McNair. 

And the reason all of this is relevant is because these women brought needlecraft and embroidery out from the shadows and made it part of mainstream art. Prior to this movement needlecraft was thought of as something genteel ladies did to pass the time, it was not considered ‘art’.

 Needlecraft was the poor relation in the art world; it was low status art and could not compete with ‘proper art’ produced by male artists. Margaret and Frances MacDonald, and their fellow Glasgow Girls changed this, their work was clever, intricate and original, it made its mark on the art world. They paved the way for contemporary artists like Midge Gourlay. 

It’s no coincidence that Midge trained at the same college, Glasgow College of Art’, as the Glasgow Girls attended over 100 years ago. 

I think this is truly a case of ‘you reap what you sow’…………….Her work is so sought after and respected various Churches have commissioned her to produce spcial pieces for them.