Material Memory

I was recently given a box of neatly sorted buttons, zips and bias binding strips. They belonged to my mother-in-law, Sheila. She and her husband are in their late 80’s. They are in the process of slowly clearing their family home of 55 years to move to smaller, more manageable accommodation. Reluctantly having to let them go, she wanted them to have a new lease of life. My thought was to give them to charity but as I explored the contents the bias binding strips felt poignant, kept with intention, carefully wrapped and secured with now rusty pins.

You can see each one in detail on my Instagram account: @janelwood

This is my last beach haul of 2025 spent walking in the winter sun with my partner and son along the beautiful shores from Cable Bay to Rhosneigr and Rhoscolyn to Trearddur Bay in the closing days of December. I’ve visited Anglesey for over 40 years from when I was a child. I collect many of the materials I use in my pieces from here, it's a place I feel an a deep connection to. I never come home empty handed.

I selected each of the objects because of their colour, texture, shape or the material they are made from. I have a growing collection of tennis balls and tangled fishing line that I have plans for. There are a few pieces that caught my attention:

What looked like the sole of a shoe with a nail in it that turned out to be made of wood. On closer inspection it looks like it is some kind template used by a shoemaker.

A fabulous knobbly root of a tree.

Fiberglass that has housed some kind of pipe work in the past.

A beautifully coloured lobster shell.

A piece of blue plastic that caught my eye as it has the letter 'B' on it.

The pieced of black wood that the objects are displayed on has spent years in the sea. I had to make a special return trip to Rhoscolyn to retrieve as the sun was setting.

I was delighted to be invited to take part in The Colour of Dreams group exhibition at the historic and intriguing Ilkley Manor House. Seeing my work sitting between John Gamble’s paintings with his limited palette of warm and cool primaries and the delightfully haunting paintings of Jonathan Hooper created an intense pop colour.

Curated by Andreea Chitan the show brings together 10 contemporary artists, each celebrating the joy and power of colour.

‘Rooms of colour that breathe. Quiet, joy-forward, and close to the senses, this exhibition gathers painters, a ceramicist, and a textile artist around one simple invitation: slow down, notice what light does to feeling, and let colour carry you toward it. Surfaces hum, edges soften, and each work opens a small space to rest.’

Participating Artists

Helina Bassey | Gill Edwards | John Gamble | Katharine Holmes | Jonathan Hooper | Hannah Lamb | Kate Lycett | Rachael Sugden | Emma Westmacott | Jane Wood

Exhibition: 29 November – 14 December

My dear friend Lou collected a selection of objects from the shore around Dungeness, a headland on the coast of Kent admired for its unique and dramatic landscape during a holiday in September 2025. She sent me a picture with the hope that I would create a selection of pieces using the objects and materials she had found.

Exploring ideas

A few weeks later we had the rare opportunity to meet up. I was handed the bag full of bits, still damp. We talked about objects, examining them closely discussing the ones that we particularly liked and those that had features that would help me with the construction process. Whilst I had a lot to work with, I asked if I could incorporate my own carefully selected pieces from Anglesey to those gathered by Lou to bring moments and our lives closer together.

Process

I only use the objects and materials that are found to construct each piece which forms a creative challenge. My approach is a process of playful experimentation, exploring how shapes sit neatly together looking for either balance or contrast within the colour palette combining natural and manmade elements to reveal surface qualities, textures and patterns within weather-beaten elements.

Materials

The three pieces I made are pictured here on my studio wall - I’ll post detailed images on Instagram @janelwood in the future. I added a piece of plastic and a strip of red tie wrap of my own to the piece mounted on yellow. The small orange piece of wood tied to the rectangle of wood was secured with blue rope strands with the addition of a small piece of copper wire that sat neatly in the groove of the wood block. Everything else was sourced from Dungeness. I am particularly fond of the Dungeness debris that has remained intact on the fishing line used to bind the wood and rusted metal on the green mounted piece.

Mounting

I usually mount pieces on a neutral background, but these felt like they needed something more, knowing Lou, picturing her home and where she might display them. The square background is a grey/green piece of kitchen worktop I had in stock. The green background is leftover paint from our bathroom makeover some years ago. The yellow, ‘Lions Mane’, a tester pot of paint from Wickes own brand bought specially for the job to draw on the colour of the little yellow tube that we inserted into the red plastic stopper of a washing up liquid bottle when we met up.

I’m very pleased with the results and hope Lou is too when she gets to see them, hold them and explore them more closely.

If you have objects or materials that are meaningful to you that you would like me to creatively transform with care, please get in touch for a chat. We can explore your ideas and see where they take us.

A while ago I watched a TV programme exploring the ruins of Pompei and was captivated by the process archeologists were using to discover the last moments of life as the pyroclastic flow from Mount Vesuvius hit the city.

Using liquid plaster to fill holes they were able to reveal the remains of a woman curled up on a bed as disaster struck, holding tight to silver coins and jewellery. It was the unearthing of what was hidden and subsequently revealed through the process that I found fascinating, a traumatic death, the material remains of a life lost in time.

Materials

I used shop bought clay to make this cast of the piece that I recently created, Very Cherry. It's a piece of painted and weathered marine ply with a plastic 'Jelly Belly' car air freshener (still with its own smell) tied to it with a piece of pink, synthetic rope. The colours, shape and textures sat well together.

Process

This transformative process of pressing damp clay onto the whole structure revealed to me something quite unexpected. The colour stripped away defined the shapes and exposed the delicacy of the textures and small marks not easily visible in its coloured form. The resulting cast, suggestive perhaps of the bodily organs, a foetus in the womb with cell like structures, a lunar landscape or quite likely something else. The manufacturing symbols of the plastic, the precision of the shape, a machine-made object, the harsh central line almost slicing it in half. Some kind of man-made intervention sitting neatly within the enclosed form.

Reflection

Much of my work is linked to people, memory and place. The piece has drawn my thoughts back to my own experience of pregnancy, medical interventions and my mother's miscarriages when I was a child. I do wonder if I actually knew what the process would reveal and my subconscious was driving a desire to revisit the past.

I've wanted to have a go at creating a looped net for a long while. I tried about 18 months ago but found it very tricky with the thread that I was using and it ended up as a bit of a knotty mess.

Materials

For this net I used a couple of flexible twigs to create the frame and unravelled rope gathered from the Anglesey coastline. The rope threads are a bit stiffer than sewing thread which worked well to create the structure of the net and keep it in place as I worked. It is, however, a lit bit too stiff and didn’t flow that easily when pulling it through the loops.

I’m quite pleased with the result of this attempt and enjoy the tied knots of thread poking up. This is a something I’d like to explore further as a potential method of constructing my 3D sculpture and assemblage pieces.

Try it yourself

I was given the book, Finding Form With Fibre for Christmas a few years ago which sparked my interest. There are all kinds of methods of working with various fibres from fourteen different artists, described as an exploration of modern basketry. I referred to the well-illustrated visual guide in the book to make this looped net. If you are interested in working with fibres and making ethical and sustainable art it is a great place to start.

I thoroughly enjoyed the opening of my first solo show - Reshaping The Past at Lidgett Lane Larder in Leeds in early August. I was delighted to sell several wall sculptures and have the opportunity to share some of the stories and creative processes behind them.

Reshaping The Past

"Jane’s work has such a sensitive and thoughtful quality, transforming found objects into something full of memory and meaning. The pieces felt both fragile and resilient, quietly holding stories of grief, connection and renewal."

Courtney Spencer - Artist and Curator

Exhibition continues until 2nd November.

Lidgett Lane Larder

Roundhay

LS8 1QR

All work for sale.

I was thrilled to be invited to show 'Thoughts from nowhere' in this group exhibition by artist and curator, Alison Aye.

Airing:

1. An exposure of linens to fresh air

2. A public expression of an opinion.

A group exhibition which invites viewers to engage with thread as both medium and metaphor. Revealing stories, textures, and tensions within the delicate, yet resilient, fibres of artistic practice.

Participating Artists

Alison Aye, Georgie Bates, Marcia Bennett-Male, Rihanata Bigey, Sarah Coviello, Tina Crawford, Helen Davies, Fiona Hingston, Emily Jo Gibbs, Woo Jin Joo, S. Kelly, Claire Mort, Sumi Perera, Radical Embroiderer, S. Riley, Sally Spinks, Sato Sugamoto, Annie Taylor, Wolfgang Woerner, Messua Wolff, Jane Wood

5 - 26 July 2025. Tension Gallery, 135 Maple Road, London SE20 8LP

I am delighted to have been selected to show ‘Porth Cwyfan map’ and ‘Delineation line’ as part of this show.

Established in 2015, the Leeds Summer Group Show is an annual exhibition celebrating visual arts talent from across the UK. The exhibition is open from 3–23 July at Leeds Playhouse in the city centre.

Porth Cwyfan map

The objects were gathered from Porth Cwyfan, Aberffraw in Anglesey, North Wales. It’s a rugged bay looking out onto the 12th-century St. Cwyfan’s Church that sits on a small island accessible by causeway at low tide.

Latitude/Longitude: 53.186404, -4.488518

Process

The components for the piece, when laid out, represented weathered items, artefacts with evident traces of the past but no discernable meaning. During the construction process to find balance in the composition, they appeared to create a unique but unfathomable map, a guide with no way finding markers or territorial boundaries but possessing an obvious history. The orange weaved wood a signifier defining a point of departure to an unplanned journey.

Materials

Beach towel label, paper, plastic, seaweed, unravelled synthetic rope and wood mounted on MDF.

Dimensions: 21 cm x 29.7 cm

I had a fantastic opportunity to participate in Roundhay Open Studios at St Edmunds church as a guest artist during the early May bank holiday in 2025. The chance to talk to so many visitors about my work was very insightful.

I outlined my restrictive (and often frustrating) process using hand construction methods along with the materials I find i.e., no nails, glue, paint or screws to bring elements together or paint for that matter. When I talked about wrapping, binding, wedging, stitching, weaving and knotting people started to engage with each piece on a much deeper level connecting directly with the materials and exploring their history.

I was delighted to sell quite a few pieces and greeting cards. Some visitors kindly took the time to share their thoughts:

“Art to sit and dream with.”

“Inspirational, wholesome and therapeutic – love this approach.”

“Very inspiring, I'm going to get creative again.”

In early June 2025 I moved out of the loft at home into one of the new spaces at Red Lane Mill studios at Sunny Bank Mills in Farsley, Leeds.

"Sunny Bank Mills offer beautifully restored creative business spaces for both small and large organisations. Sunny Bank Mills Gallery is the epicentre of our arts programme, spanning exhibitions, workshops, studio spaces and events, and the Sunny Bank Mills Museum & Archive protects and promotes the history of the mill and the community."

Red Lane Mill is a large, airy space with a lot of history to share in the fabric of the building. Alan who was the owner of Gallagher and Bell a carpentry company previously based in Red Lane Mill called into see the recent transformation. He was able to identify evidence of the marks that his machinery has left behind on the floor and on the walls where he cleaned his brushes.

There are 48 artists and makers' studios spread across the historic Spinning Mill, Twisting and Red Lane Studio. I’m looking forward to getting to know the other studio holders and the wider Sunny Bank community.

Feel free to call in and say hello If you’re making a visit.