Using Art to Heal
Words by Ailish Henderson
Photography by Sean Elliott
Ailish Henderson is a narrative artist, dwelling on and sustaining her practice via the implication of memory and storytelling. Moments matter; she endeavours to live by this suggestion of thought. Fine art textiles are her specialism, she is an author, lecturer and tutor, leading others to reach their own art-bound conclusions. She has had three UK solo exhibitions to date, travelled to Rome, Italy to exhibit key works and has another solo exhibition coming October 2024 in London. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Embroidery and Selvedge.
Growing Up
I was born in Northern Ireland at a small hospital named Daisy Hill. My parents met over there while doing volunteer work. My mother is from Northern England, and my father is Scottish. It was the time of the troubles, and yet we all fell for the people and beauty of the country. Due to the unrest and danger, it was decided that my mother would home-school me. Five years passed, and I look back to this time with a happy glow; I was loved, nourished, and fed to my every educational and humanistic whim. However, my mother’s parents suddenly got very sick, and we made the choice to relocate to Northern England to care for them. We have made our life here, across the passing of the sea.
Being home-schooled was the best gift my mother ever gave to me. She gave her life to nourish my mind; this was no airy-fairy education; everything was strictly by the school year. She taught me to be dedicated and to give everything to anything I did in my life. If you can be dedicated to what you do, you WILL get somewhere with it. You may not be successful, yet honestly, how can we measure success? Surely, if we have some joy in our lifetime, that’s all that really matters.
Art had to come out of me, yet it surfaced under various guises over the years. My father’s mother studied at The Royal Academy of Arts, in London during her youth. So, I attribute my love of playing with pen and paint to that side of my family. On the other side, my mother and grandmother were forever trying to get a needle in my hand, as both had key experience in textiles. Maybe it was the rebellious teenager in me, but it took till I was studying Fine Art at college and happened to get a stand-in textile art tutor (I blame her pink hair and her nose stud)! Anyway, she subtly placed a needle and thread within my grasp and that was it. I had met my match in a strokable form.
Since then, I have learned my trade, educated myself both formally and casually and made enough to keep me as a solo artist being my only ‘job’.
Would I change anything? No. It is what it is. I do not wish to have been more successful earlier or to have learned about embroidery textiles and other fibre methods earlier. I value my foundation of all artistic practices and I feel that my drawing and painting work adds weight and mixed media values.
“Art must come from the heart. Personally, I feel that I am going against myself if I do not live this line. I am a person who wears their heart on their sleeve and my work is a vocalisation of that. It is my push, my reason. ”
Healing
Moments matter. I have my life story; you will have yours. Due to a variety of personal and familial traumatic events in my younger years, I needed a vice—not something to heal, more so to soothe for the now. Art is no fix; however, it can be a source of well-being provocation. I endeavour to pass this on, but not in a bold manner. I just quietly let my clients find their own artistic voice and discover for themselves how it can support them personally.
Art must come from the heart. Personally, I feel that I am going against myself if I do not live this line. I am a person who wears their heart on their sleeve and my work is a vocalisation of that. It is my push, my reason.
I have a short attention span, so a multi-faceted routine fits in well and is one of the many things I love about my work. Some days, there will be nothing, and I crave the feeling of being on deadline. Others are overwhelming, and I dream of a silent walk in the woods.
Working as an artist can often be lonely if you let it unless you are part of a group or social studio. I work from home, so teaching and lecturing allow me to become what I need to be—the verbal refile!
Teaching
I teach many textile and art methods, depending on the class or session type. The one that has become most successful is Narrative Stitched Collage. In this class, participants use their own stories to build mixed-media textile outcomes.
I encourage all, before attending, to isolate an image they wish to jump from, something to excite and inspire them. I will give each one a pack of possibilities to work with and materials they can choose from. They are warned to bring along any familial mementoes or personal items which they feel they could add to their work; for example, if they are working from a photo of a holiday, do they have a postcard from that holiday they could weave into the collage they create? We bash together mixed media, pen, paint, and fabric and finally add key highlights of stitching.
I am often envious of the results of each class I guide, and they help me decide what to create with them then and there. They, my students, open my mind, as much as I hope to mirror this with them.
Honestly, I cannot think of any negatives towards teaching; it allows me to talk about what I love and allows me to be immersed in what I love as well. Couple this with my need to ‘fix’ and be a compassionate person and it is a win-win.
Looking back on my younger self – at 16, I knew that art had to be my life. I just didn’t know how it would happen. I thought I could use retail, selling my work as my only income, yet this takes time and full-hearted work. I should have known all along teaching was in my bloodline: Ailish, your mother taught you at home for your entire educational years, your father was a maths lecturer and all your dad’s side of the family worked in some form of education formally. It was only time till it took you over as well!
Finding Myself
During a period of my degree study, I do admit I lost myself. I became controlled by the marking schemes (grading), a never-ending excavation of what they were looking for. My greatest marks came from work, which simply were not me. I became overly critical in all aspects of life, as the more you learn, the more your brain seems to widen out and question. This became soothed once again, but it took years to allow myself to be who I wanted to be – not the artist who made humanised sculptures out of Jesmonite (concrete) but the girl who had a story to tell and desired to impart it in a textile manner. I may scream if anyone ever asks me what I see as my specialism. If they do, I will simply answer – ‘happy art’.
Moving on from that self-profession, what has been my most successful moment can only be calculated years after the actual event. This year, I have the most exciting opportunity of my career. I am not yet able to say what it is. However, when I look at achievements, I also look for what has made me stronger as a person….
During the COVID-19 lockdowns, I was invited to exhibit my work in Rome, Italy. Financially, this seemed impossible, but my family are the most supportive I could ever have, they were not going to allow this opportunity to pass. Through the kindness of an uncle ‘J’ and my dear, now lost grandmother, I was able to secure the needed travel and stay. Togged up in my silk face mask, it took two flights to get there and two back, with all the checks, and COVID-19 forms……you can only imagine the stress. But I did it. All on my own. I was there for the whole exhibition, which was a part of the Rome Textile Biennial at a prestigious art gallery in the Trastevere district. It was wonderful to see the work, no matter the circumstances. I still have my ‘proof’, the photographs taken, with my mask still on, with my work. A week or ten days later, I returned home and never thought more of it. Now I reflect and it has become a bargaining chip to myself – if you can do that Ailish...then you can do this smaller thing….
Narrative Textiles: Tell your story in mixed media and stitch by Ailish Henderson is published by Batsford, October 2024. Available to pre-order now from booksellers, including Amazon.
Book cover image taken by Katie Vandyck
