Category Archives: Retrospective

The Emotional Depth in Sue Stone’s Creations

Retrospective – An Archive of work made in 2024

Title of Work: A Glimpse of Calm Amidst the Chaos 2024

“A Glimpse of Calm Amidst the Chaos” captures a 1940s family posed on a stile, embodying a fleeting moment of serenity in a world which seems to be run by lunatics. Set against an idyllic rural landscape, the family sits with an air of innocence, contrasting starkly with the chaos around them. Through a mix of hand stitch, free machine stitch and appliqué, Sue Stone weaves a tactile story of continuity and contradiction. By blending traditional techniques with contemporary reflections, the piece invites viewers to ponder how much – or how little – the world has changed. The work speaks to a longing for stability in uncertain times, drawing attention to the persistent tension between personal sanctuary and societal upheaval.

Materials & Techniques

Hand stitch and free machine stitch:cotton and wool threads on a cotton/linen background with applied recycled cotton lawn clothing fabrics.

Size: 38.5 x 51 cms

First Shown in the Broderers Exhibition at Bankside Gallery 2025

Title of work: The Stuff of Nightmares 2024
“The Stuff of Nightmares” delves into the fractured visions of a troubled mind affected by the world’s darkest realities. Through haunting imagery of global conflicts, innocent lives lost, and a society seemingly led by madness, Sue Stone uses intricate hand and free machine stitching combined with appliqué to capture this dystopian landscape. The textured layers, are pieced together to echo the fragmented experiences of those touched by war and suffering. This work confronts viewers with raw and unsettling truths, challenging them to acknowledge the unseen nightmares that echo through society, while also highlighting the fragility of humanity caught up in the mayhem.
Materials & Techniques
Hand and free machine stitch: cotton and wool threads on a cotton/linen background with applied recycled cotton lawn clothing fabrics.

Size:38.5 x 51 cms

First Shown in the Broderers Exhibition at Bankside Gallery London 2025

Soon to be shown in The Usher Open, Lincoln, UK 2025

Making as Learning Exhibition – Salts Mill

For this exhibition which celebrated the 62Group@62 Sue Stone created two double-sided pieces that establish a dialogue between the visible and hidden aspects of her work, transforming the making process into a journey of learning.

Title – Coalescence
Sue Stone’s work is a construction of teaching samples and studies for completed pieces which showcase a diverse range of techniques and explorations. Each piece is distinguished by additional stitching that leaves a distinctive footprint on the back, adding a unique element to the artwork’s structure. By including self-portraits, Sue pays tribute to Audrey Walker, who was known for her stitched portraiture. This homage highlights the inspiration drawn from Audrey’s legacy and influence, whilst also highlighting the personal and introspective nature of artistic expression. This blend of teaching, experimentation, and tribute encapsulates Sue’s creative journey.
Materials: Linen, recycled clothing , cotton thread, wool yarn, paint, InkTense pencil 

Techniques: Hand and machine stitching, appliqué, painting, waterproofing, fabric weaving
Size:63 x 182 x 2 cmsTitle – Integrated

Sue Stone’s work consists of digital prints of finished pieces that have been showcased in 62 Group exhibitions. This artwork is uniquely marked by additional hand and machine stitching, visible as a distinctive footprint on the back. This stitching not only adds texture and depth but also symbolises the Sue’s commitment to blending modern and traditional techniques in her creative process. The integration of these elements highlights the artist’s innovative approach to contemporary art, creating a dialogue between the visible and hidden aspects of her work, and inviting viewers to explore the layers of meaning within each piece.

Materials: Digitally printed waterproof fabric, Cotton threads, linen fabric
Techniques: Digital printing, appliqué, hand and machine stitching

Size: 63 x 182 x 2 cms

First shown at Salts Mill, Saltaire, Bradford in 62@62 Making as Learning exhibition

Title – Integrated
Sue Stone’s work consists of digital prints of finished pieces that have been showcased in 62 Group exhibitions. This artwork is uniquely marked by additional hand and machine stitching, visible as a distinctive footprint on the back. This stitching not only adds texture and depth but also symbolises the Sue’s commitment to blending modern and traditional techniques in her creative process. The integration of these elements highlights the artist’s innovative approach to contemporary art, creating a dialogue between the visible and hidden aspects of her work, and inviting viewers to explore the layers of meaning within each piece.

Materials: Digitally printed waterproof fabric, Cotton threads, linen fabric 

Techniques: Digital printing, appliqué, hand and machine stitching
Size: 63 x 182 x 2 cms

First shown at Salts Mill

Naomi

Celebrating the Life of Naomi Crowder who lived life to the full.

Fred in Suits

A partner piece to She Tailored the Clothes They Wore 2023 depicting Fred Stone, Sue Stone’s Dad in fashionable suits; waistcoat and single breasted jacket around 1929/30, double breasted and chalk striped in the 1940s , His suits were always worn with a white shirt and a tweed or silk tie.

Shown at The Hub, Sleaford in the 62 Group Tailored exhibition

Schooldays 1920s

From my father-in-law’s school photo (he is on the front row seated left at the end of the bench. Detail above.

Good Companions: The Girls who Made the Suits v3 2024

“Good Companions :The Girls Who Made the Suits” explores the strength and solidarity found within a community of women. The artist’s mother, a professionally trained tailor, worked
tirelessly with a group of women in the tailoring department of a small-town store, crafting bespoke suits for local businessmen. Despite their skill and labour, the women received no recognition ; credit was given to the men in charge. In response, the women built a close-knit community, supporting one another both at work and in their personal lives. Through hand embroidery, Sue Stone reflects on this unspoken bond and the quiet power of their shared experiences.

Size:20 x 20 cms

Shown at the 13th Baltic Minitextiles exhibition at Museum of Gdynia, Poland in 2025

Now acquired by the Museum of Gdynia collection

Retrospective – an Archive of work made in 2023

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Fred in Suits and Muriel May Stone • She Tailored the Clothes They Wore 2023

Fred in Suits shows Sue Stone’s Dad in the 1930s and 1940s

Sue Stone grew up surrounded by tweed, serge, and worsted fabrics. She learned to sew at an early age and the word ‘Tailored’ has a very personal meaning for her. In 1928 aged 14 her Mum, Muriel May Stone was apprenticed to a tailor. She trained professionally and then worked in the bespoke tailoring department of a large department store in her hometown of Grimsby until her marriage. Muriel may have had to stop going out to work when she married but she never gave up tailoring and so Sue and her sister, Jean wore the Sunday best suits, coats, and jackets that Muriel lovingly made for them.

Sue’s Dad, Fred was a picture of sartorial elegance and always wore a fashionable suit. He wore a 3 piece as a young man consisting of ultra fashionable plus fours, waistcoat, single breasted jacket and Argyll socks around 1929/30, and double breasted and chalk striped in the 1940s usually wore with a white shirt and a tweed or silk tie. He wore a suit everyday until his retirement when he reluctantly donned a more casual sports jacket or cardigan and slacks.

She tailored the Clothes We Wore 2023 -Panel 1 – hand and machine stitch

She Tailored the Clothes We Wore – Panel 2 – detail – mixed media

3 new self portraits 2023 no 68, 69, 70 – mixed media – part of Sue Stone’s installation of 70 self portraits which each measure 26 x 30 cms (10 x 12 ins)

A Grimsby Girl’s World tour – Bergerac 2023 – mixed media

A Grimsby Girl’s World Tour series has included imagined journeys to Bogota, Colombia, Tokyo, Japan, outer space, Copenhagen, Denmark, Madrid, Spain, Brooklyn, NYC, USA, & Vancouver, Canada.

The Grimsby Girl is the artist’s Mum, Muriel May Stone who was born in an era when women had no right to vote. She had no chance to travel abroad in her lifetime and very few opportunities in life to pursue her artistic and musical interests. Muriel loved singing and was a talented contralto. She left school aged 13 and was apprenticed to a tailor. It was a hard life with no recognition of her talents as a seamstress. Here, in this exhibition she visits Bergerac in SW France.

Below: Small studies for the Textileartist.org Stitch Club Workshop July 2023

Cards and small studies for my solo exhibition Shifts and Allusions at the Hub, Sleaford, Uk

Lost in a Strange World 2021
52 x 74 cms

Retrospective • An Archive of work made in 2021

Imagined Journeys A series of small mixed media studies

Below: A Grimsby Girl’s World Tour continues • Stopover Brooklyn. Image credit Pitcher Design. Hand and machine stitch study

Below: Another Time, Another Place and In Another Life were selected for The Broderers Exhibition The Art of Embroidery 2022

Detail of Another Time, Another Place :image credit Pitcher Design

Detail of In Another Life image credit Pitcher Design

Another Time, Another Place image credit Pitcher Design

In Another Life 2021 continues a Grimsby Girl’s world tour with a stopover in Madrid . Size 48.5 x 59 cms • Hand/machine stitch with applied fabrics

Born in 1913 she was not able to travel during her lifetime and had very few opportunities in life to pursue her artistic and musical interests. She left school aged 13 and was apprenticed to a tailor. It was a hard life with no recognition of her skill as a seamstress. She loved singing and was a talented contralto. Here in another life, alongside her best friend she travels to Madrid to study music, dance and theatre.

Another Time, Another Place 2021 • Size: 48.5 x 59 cms

Hand/machine stitch/applied fabrics.

Born in a time when women had no right to vote and many left school at 13 or 14 years old. Ordinary women without opportunities to work after marriage or to travel abroad. Combining images of unknown people from the family album with images from the Alcázar Real in Seville, Spain; symbols of heritage combine with memories to make the composition and bring together an imagined journey to another time and place.

Below: Made in Grimsby was selected for the 62 Group exhibition Connected Cloth

Made in Grimsby • image credit Pitcher design

Detail of Made in Grimsby image credit Pitcher Design

Made in Grimsby • The documenting of a small lifestyle clothing brand called Anywear. 1975 • in an Edwardian shop premises, womenswear was designed & made in Grimsby from cloth that travelled from far and wide. During the lifespan of the business the need to become more commercial had replaced the ‘one off’ designs. By 2002 the designer had had enough of designing other people’s clothes and Anywear closed its doors.

Materials :linen and recycled clothing fabrics, cotton and linen threads

Techniques: hand and machine stitch, appliqué, piecing, drawing

Size: 139 x 87.5 x 2.5 cms

Photos by Pitcher Design

Below: Portrait of Mrs P •a head and shoulders portrait of Constance Howard MBE 1910 – 2000.

Portrait of Mrs P aka Constance Howard • image credit Pitcher Design

Size: 30.5 x 38.5 cms (12 x 15ins)

Techniques: hand embroidery & appliqué. Materials: recycled cotton, linen & silk fabrics, cotton embroidery threads & wool yarn.

Portrait of Constance Howard MBE (1910 – 2000) who established the influential Embroidery department at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She had a huge impact on contemporary embroidery in the second half of the 20th century.

Constance was a small, charismatic person with bright green hair which she sported from the 1930s up until her death. She was always known to her students as Mrs P.

Below: A Step into The Unknown

Detail of A Step into the Unknown • photo credit Pitcher Design

A Step into the Unknown • photo credit Pitcher design. Size 116 x 84cms (46 x 33ins)

A Step Into the Unknown is part of the Imagined Journeys series • mixed media – Size: 116 x 84cms (46 x 33ins)

A series of small portraits

Study of a man - hand stitch with appliqué

Girls in a Doorway

a new iPad drawing for work to be made in 2021.

Which Way Now? (below) aka A Self Portrait in Turmoil is perhaps an indication of my frame of mind during lockdown.

size:132 x 59 cms

mixed media

The Girls who made the Suits version 2 (below) is an experiment in texture and pattern

3 new self portraits (below) for the ongoing self portraits now numbering 67. 2 are replacements for portraits that have gone to new homes numbers 26 and 27 and a new one number 67.

Replacement self portrait number 26 version 2

Replacement self portrait number 27 version 2

**Boxing Day with Grandad** – iPad drawing – commission for Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre GFHC in a Box project 2020

A Book Before Bedtime (below) was a commission for the Grimsby Fishing heritage Centre – GFHC in a Box project supported by Arts council England

Made in 2020

Size: 54.5 x 40 cms

Materials: Acrylic gouache, pencil crayon, cotton and wool threads on cotton calico

Techniques: Hand embroidery, painting

A domestic scene from the 1950s when every night my Mum would read me a book at bedtime. We would sit on the settee with me ready for bed in my pyjamas. Our 1950s living room had heavy, dark utility furniture, a patterned carpet, patterned cushions, antimacassars on the settee, and faded patterned wallpaper with plaster ducks flying across the wall. Always a handbag, letters to post, and a favourite photo of my older sister on the side board and always a pair of shoes underneath the sideboard. The wireless set (radio) has a particular significance in capturing the atmosphere of the times. It was via the wireless that we would hear the news, both good and bad, of triumph and of loss. On the wall a picture of my Dad, Fred Stone working on the old pontoon on Grimsby docks in the 1950s with his brother, my Uncle Harry.

I am very proud of my Grimsby heritage and the close ties my family had with the Grimsby fishing industry in the 1950s is often reflected in the artwork I make. I was born in 1952 and as a child I spent a lot of time ‘down dock’ with my Dad, a Grimsby fish merchant. ‘Down Dock’ was a community within a community.

The passing on of knowledge has always been an important part of my artistic practice so when the chance to be involved with this project arose I was honoured to be able to take the opportunity to revisit my roots and make a piece of work for the Fishing Heritage Centre Collection and I welcome the chance for my work to reach a new audience through the loans boxes.

A Book Before Bedtime- Commissioned work for GFHC supported by ACE

This Life Matters (below)

Work size w 190 cms x 35 cms

Portrait sizes 2 x 17 x 21 cms, 2 x 18.5 x 23.5 cms, 3 x 21 x 26 cms

Recycled linen clothing fabrics, cotton cambric, acrylic film, stranded cotton threads, cotton machine threads, industrial felt mat

Hand stitch, machine stitch, appliqué

‘This Life Matters’ is a series of 7 small portraits which focus on the inequality spotlighted by the Covid 19 pandemic. Each representative of the global community wears the same white t shirt with a slogan ‘This Life Matters’, a nod to Katherine Hamnett’s ‘Choose Life’ slogan t-shirts of the 1980s, Each has their own word embroidered at their side which indicates their circumstances or mindset: Displaced, disenfranchised, disconsolate, dispossessed, dispirited, disabled, and lastly disappearing. Each life is as important as the next.

A series of new teaching samples (Below) made in 2020

Narrative, Strip Weaving & Portrait – hand stitch & mixed media

Portrait of Anne Morrell (below)

hand stitch 26 x 30 cms

A commissioned work to accompany the article Roots in Two continents by Brinda Gill for Issue 95 (July /August) of Selvedge magazine

Brooklyn: Recollection, Return and Repartee (below)

Completed January 2020

Materials: linen & cotton fabrics, cotton & linen threads, acrylic paint

Size 100 x 77 x 2 cms

Techniques: hand stitch, machine stitch, appliqué, painting

Part of a series of work called From Grimsby* to Greenpoint & Beyond this piece Brooklyn: Recollection, Return, and Repartee recounts the artist’s memories of return visit to Brooklyn in March 2019. The viewer is taken on a journey during which flashbacks and glimpses of everyday life, are encapsulated in the ‘mind’s eye’ of the artist; attempting to capture of the essence of a specific New York borough and recalling the brogue of Brooklyn in the form of sights, experiences and written word.

Meandering lines plot our paths and the conversations twist and turn; from small talk on the subway to bantering with tall statues in Banker St, taking in gibberish and graffiti in Greenpoint, a powwow at Prospect Park, books at the Brooklyn public library and the buzz of Brooklyn Museum on the way.

The references in this piece include a homage to the street artist ESPO aka Stephen Powers & artist Deborah Kass

*Grimsby is the artist’s hometown in the UK.

Retrospective – An Archive of Work from 2019

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Re-Tellings – a major solo exhibition by Grimsby based artist Sue Stone whose work is inspired by people, place and time. Hand embroidery plays a big part in Sue’s work sometimes mixed with machine stitch and/or paint and there are also some digital prints and new iPad drawings.

The pieces in this exhibition are part of an ongoing series of narratives inspired by memories; both the artist’s own and those of others. Members of the public were invited to take part by sharing memories of themselves and their relationships in the form of anecdotes, and images and Sue has now collected stories from all over the world.

A Family's Life 3 — A Family’s Life 3 – 2019 – mixed media

The common link in this particular selection of work is that of family and friendship. Many of the stories focus on relationships between family members; the bonds between siblings and cousins, mothers and daughters, grandparents and grandchildren. But there are also tales of imagined journeys and that illusive dream of a Desert Island.

Detail of They Shared the knitting of the Jumper 2019

For the Desert Island 2019 – mixed media

A selection of smaller works for Re-Tellings

The exhibition also provided another outing for the epic chronicle of the artist’s own life story told in a series of self-portraits one for each year of the artist’s life so far. 66 in total . The 3 new self-portraits below made in 2019 bring the installation up to date.