WELCOME TO DEBORAH GRAY TEXTILES

I am a textile artist based in Oban, on the beautiful West coast of Scotland. Working mainly in wool and upcycled natural textiles, a major theme of my recent work has been an exploration of the links between the work itself and the place in which the materials were grown and the work was created. In 2018, 2019 and 2021 I was Artist in Residence at the Icelandic Textile Centre in Blonduos. An exhibition 'Of the land: Icelandic Wool' was shown in three venues in 2019. In 2020 further works on this theme, and works in Shibori and Ecoprinting techniques were exhibited, alongside a collection of 30 knitted 'postcards'. In 2021 I co-created a community dye garden and exhibited on natural dyeing and botanical printing. My main project for 2022 was 'Celtic Alphabet Trees in their True Colours', creating a large community artwork of stitched fabric leaves dyed with each of the 18 trees associated with the Celtic alphabet. I also collaborated with Wool in the North, an international project addressing native wool use and waste in 4 Nordic countries, creating educational materials and a collection of knitting patterns.
I have been teaching spinning, natural dyeing and knitting in workshops and one-to-one in Scotland for well over 30 years, as well as at textile festivals abroad.