Creative Caversham – Kate Findlay

Picking up the thread

TEXTILE ARTIST Kate Findlay vividly remembers the moment her passion for art was kindled: when her mum took her to London to see a Turner exhibition. “I remember looking at his work, and his sketchbooks, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is what I want to do!’” says Kate.
Nurturing her interest throughout her schooldays in Andover she went on to do a degree in textile art in Wolverhampton and worked as a designer in the carpet industry. However, after she was made redundant, she retrained as a teacher and moved to this area where she worked at Blessed Hugh Faringdon, becoming Head of Art, subsequently teaching art at St Mary’s prep school in Henley. Taking a break from school teaching, she was keen to exhibit her paintings; active with the Henley Arts & Craft Guild, where she became Chair, she also helped set up the Henley Arts Trail with the aim of attracting more people to see the extraordinary range of art being created in the South Oxfordshire area.
It was as Kate was spending time at home when her son was little that she was to discover the medium that nowadays has become her own. “I was asked to make some new banners for my church, St Nicolas in Earley, and I really loved it. I thought to myself, I just want to work in fabrics – so doing this took me back to textiles. It really was a ‘lightbulb moment’ for me!”
Kate created a pair of banners for each of the Church seasons; after this she also went on to make stoles for the vicars of St Nicolas. However, Kate’s next project with quilting techniques was a world away from the work now associated with her.
“Very different to what I am doing now!” she recalled. “I started my Large Hadron Collider series of pieces made using quilting techniques. I became fascinated by the project at CERN in Switzerland and was inspired by the huge circular shapes. Making large art quilts enabled me to make pieces two metres square. Over the course of four years, I built up enough work for a series of solo shows round the country.
“But then, as a member of the Quilters’ Guild we were asked to create ‘journal quilts’ which were all very small. The idea was to produce one a month, to cover the 12 months of the year. I decided to do birds… from this, everything I do now emerged from this series of 12 small ‘journal quilts.’”
From a practical point of view Kate realised creating smaller pieces that were relatable were both popular and saleable – and she was also commissioned by organisations such as the National Trust and Oxfam to create designs. “Since I started creating the work I do nowadays, inspired by birdlife and nature, my way of working has evolved, and I have moved away from quilting; it’s a lot more aligned with embroidery. I mainly do machine embroidery, not so much hand embroidery – partly due to the added speed when I use a machine.
I use a collage technique, dyeing much of my own fabric, then cutting pieces of fabric, bonding the pieces, then embroidering over the layers. My works tend to be around 50- 60cm square, it’s hard to go much beyond that size, for manoeuvrability under the sewing machine. I think people can relate to this kind of size of a piece, and it works well when hung on their walls.”

Nowadays Kate tours the country both exhibiting and selling her textiles, as well as leading workshops where she teaches adults her craft. Many will have spotted her eye-catching exhibition at the Caversham Picture Framers at the end of 2025: “The exhibition at the Picture Framers went very well, I was surprised to sell as many pieces as I did!” For the past five years she has also taken part in the summer celebration of local art and artists which takes place at Greys Court at Rotherfield Greys during the summer months.
“The first time I showed my work at Greys Court it was part of the Henley Arts Trail,” Kate explained. “It was very successful for me; I sold all the pieces I had exhibited! Then my friend painter Sarah Pye suggested that we approach Greys Court and ask if we could put on a joint exhibition, after the arts trail. This worked really well for us, and we have done this ever since. This summer Sarah and I are being joined by jeweller Janet Richardson.
“It is perfect for us, I love being there, and I find it so inspirational. While I am there, I take lots of photographs, and I will be exhibiting pieces of work which are based on Greys Court itself.”
Kate also loves leading workshops and the teaching aspect of her work. “I teach both quilting and working with mixed textiles,” she said. “However, I am now trying to balance all these commitments, as I do need to have the time to make my own work!”