Profile

Photo: Dominic Harris

Textile artist, author and educator

Ruth Singer has won The Big Idea competition run by Leicester's Haymarket Shopping Centre . The competition aimed to find a new local entrepreneur and help them start a new business. Ruth's proposal for Ruth Singer Studio, a craft and making workshop venue, won the competition. Ruth had to submit a written proposal, present to a panel of judges and then win the popular vote online.

Ruth Singer Studio wins £1000 cash prize and a month of rent-free space in a shop unit within The Haymarket Centre. The Haymarket studio will be open from 29th March to 26th April with a range of workshops and events including events for families and schools.

Ruth Singer Studio will move to a permanent home in Leicester's Cultural Quarter in May 2012. The studio will offer a range of beginner and advanced sewing workshops including Ruth's trademark fabric manipulation techniques. There will also be special events and activities for all ages, sewing machines to hire by the hour, one-to-one sewing classes, dressmaking masterclasses, textile history study days, guest artist workshops and much more.

Ruth Singer creates one-off textile artworks and products using sustainable and recycled materials. Ruth's work is inspired by historical textiles, museum objects, personal heritage, memory and stories. Ruth uses hand-stitched construction techniques such as pleating, gathering, applique and structured stuffing to create dense surface texture and she explores scale, proportion, structure and repetition using hand-cut, stitched and assembled elements. Many of her techniques are developed from the study of historical textiles, based on her own research and first career in museums.

In 2010 Ruth completed her first public commission from Derby Museums and Arts Service, to create new work inspired by their previously unseen African collections for an exhibition called 'Figures of Africa'. Ruth created a group of four works exploring the hidden stories embedded in the objects, and our response to them as curators or viewers. Ruth's new work includes the series 'Monumental Folly' which explores love and the sense of place associated with a particular building. Ruth is also developing art quilts for exhibition, following the display of her piece 'Optimism' at the 2010 Festival of Quilts. Ruth has recently been working in paper.

Ruth also designs a range of projects for books and magazines and has written two sewing books, Sew It Up (2008) and Sew Eco (2010). She is a passionate and inspiring educator, specialising in working with adults and community groups, collaborating with museums and in developing innovative and challenging creative projects. Ruth has worked with a wide-range of audiences through her museum and textiles career including schools, families, targeted communities and young people. In addition, Ruth works as a creative consultant and project manager for arts and heritage projects, both small and large. Recent projects include creative consultancy with young people for 'Our Sporting Life' and managing a schools & museums project for Mantle Arts called 'Spin A Yarn'.

Ruth was selected by the Crafts Council as one of the best new makers of the year for Springboard at Origin 2006 and was selected to show independently in 2007 and 2008. She has received funding and support from Creative Leicestershire, The Arts Council, Design Factory, University College of the Creative Arts, Find Your Talent and Brighton and Hove City Council. She has recently completed a City and Guilds Certificate in Preparing to teach in the Life Long Learning Sector.