Kathy Harmer Fox - Hang your head in shame

Medium: Various and assorted dress materials and sewing threads and netting on 100% cotton duck canvas.

I came to this incredibly versatile medium as a painter who believes that the ability to draw not only opens my eye and allows me to see, but also increases my vocabulary as an artist. I use fabric and thread as a sketcher would use paint and graphite. The myriad little snippets of fabric are similar to daubs of paint, laid one atop the other, as the sewing thread stitches the material into place, morphing into an easy flow of coloured line.

In the medium of fibre art, my domestic sewing machine becomes a glorified brush or pencil. Although my works are made up of fabric and thread, I am wary of describing them as "quilts" simply because of the traditional connotations necessarily attached to that word. Although the medium is similar to that used by any quilter, my manipulation of it is not. I am not as restricted by the established rules and this allows me the freedom to explore a range of themes and techniques.

I am forever grateful to my mother for teaching the little girl in me to use the sewing machine and to all the textile artists who opened my eyes to the medium as a woman.