Hollie Ward
DEPTFORD, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
On her treasured handloom, weaver Hollie Ward uses natural fibres to weave long-lasting artefacts for the home.
Following a degree in textile crafts from the University of Huddersfield, Hollie set up her own studio in Deptford, London, sourcing inspiration in subcultures and the vitality of natural materials. As of late, Hollie has participated in artist residencies in Northern Iceland and Scotland, devoting her time to studying the complete production cycles and craft techniques of cultures with rich weaving histories. Wool harvested from icelandic and shetland sheep remains integral to her pieces, which are crafted to with-stand time and hint at a lived experience.
Hollie's first encounter with crafts
As a child, Hollie covetted her grandfather’s creative fervour as a hobbyist painter as he plastered the walls of his house with artwork. She aspired to follow a similar creative path, and with time became fascinated with textiles and fibres.
During her teenage years, Hollie began registering and admiring the symbolic significance of fibres in subcultures. She particularly appreciated the use of tartans (a plaid textile design traditionally associated with Scottish nobility and prestige) in signifying a rejection of conformity in the punk milieu in the United Kingdom.
Hollie quickly thereafter left school behind and began training with master weavers, attending in 2011 the University of Huddersfield in Queensgate, England, and completing a degree in textile crafts.
“For me it was important to be in that location, to be surrounded by the rich heritage of cloth and to be around mills that are still manufacturing fabric today.”
She currently weaves from her studio in Deptford, London, where she nurses a defiance against conformity by placing significant textiles in juxtaposition with each other and allowing designs to develop organically.
Working with wool
In the spring of 2018, Hollie went on a three-month weaving residency to rural Northern Iceland, where she learnt how to harness the materials available to her and create articles of clothing suitable to the oceanic, cool climate, with ice and snow used to prepare the wool.
With funding from the Arts Council England, Hollie afterwards embarked on a research trip to the Isle of Lewis and Harris in Scotland in the spring of 2023, likewise exposed to rugged land and weather. Here she was once more able to follow the process of harvesting textile fibres from local cattle and preparing them for transformation into handwoven pieces with the use of natural resources.
Through her residencies and training with other talented weavers, Hollie has become specifically acquainted with the beneficial properties of wool — as a durable, hygienic and natural fibre. Wool from Shetland- and Icelandic sheep remain integral to her pieces. Her experiences abroad have moreover won her a newfounded admiration for the climate and natural materials, which in several ways come to dictate the craft process.