Sorrell Kerrison: Creating Hand Embroidered Portraits

Today on the Stitchery Stories embroidery and textile art podcast, Sorrell Kerrison shares her life in fabric & thread, and music!

Sorrell is a creative who produces work in different mediums – textile art, print, painting, film, as well as writing music, playing guitar and singing in several bands through the years.

Our main focus in this episode is around the excitement of the four large hand embroidered portraits that Sorrell was commissioned to create for Bolton Museum Egyptology collection. These are now part of the Museum’s permanent collection.

Continue reading to discover the highlights of our chat and to see some images of Sorrell’s work.

We have a fascinating chat about colour and also about Sorrell finding her focus around hand embroidered portraits.

Susan Weeks chats with Sorrell about:

Seeing the opportunity to propose hand embroidery as a suitable medium for portraits for Bolton Museum commission
Winning the bid for all four portraits
Being very specific about her creative process
Why embroidery can be similar to Jazz “improv”
Finding self expression in art and film making and rebelling against rigid ideas
Fascination with faces
Saying “hello” to her portraits
Developing consistency, finding her path and loving her portrait work
Stitching as therapy whilst listening to podcasts
About her interesting use of colour
Making a vow and some ‘rules’ to help finish things
What’s Stopping You? Just Go and do that thing you’ve always wanted to do
What it takes to create a body of work
Embroidery is enforced patience
Building a Patreon page