Cas Holmes is interested in the liminal, ‘in between’ spaces connecting land, place and environment. Trained in fine art, her work combines mixed media with found materials and stitch and is best described as ‘painting with cloth’. She is a tutor at the prestigious West Dean College and trained in community arts working in areas of health, education and environmental arts practice. The challenge of working on site-specific and commissions continues to inform her practice

This conversation between me and textile artist Cas Holmes was such a joy. We first recorded a conversation last year for the Textiles in Lockdown one-off podcast I created for Gawthorpe Textiles Collection and I knew I wanted to talk more to Cas. I discovered so much more about her work than I had known before; about migration and cultural heritage, about responding to old but meaningful cloth and other objects and we also talked about the loss of talking to other people, sparking ideas and sharing textile making in communal spaces through the pandemic. What I love about Cas’ work is the co-creation she often inspires through a dedicated textile fan base and through decades of community practice. She talks movingly about the impact of little conversations, asides and responses and how all that feeds into her work which she creates with delicacy and thoughtfulness. She talks about the losses we have all felt through the pandemic and how it has created more understanding of those who have been displaced and constrained by incredibly difficult circumstances. I recommend you also listen to the Textiles in Lockdown podcast for more about this, which we recorded together last year. Her new book is available here.

See below for links to things we talked about in the podcast.

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