FEATURED ARTISTS
​APRIL 2023
Mariette Voke, Jane Bisby and Lucy Goff

Mariette Voke
I am an artist working in The Forest of Dean. I paint colourful still lives, using oils or watercolours, loving both mediums for their very different qualities.

Favourite things and everyday treasures are my constant source of still life subjects, along with clothing. I’m fond of items that often get overlooked, spoons, cotton reels, old tins and teacups. I collect and wear 1950’s vintage dresses and jackets, I love the way that they can connect with objects in a painting to depict stories and memories.
My latest watercolours are inspired by spring and the need to cheer up those early months of the year with colour. An interest in natural history and a love of wildflowers as well as gardening, means that plants and flowers often make an appearance in my paintings.
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Most days are spent drawing and painting in my studio shed in our cottage garden. I enjoy the whole process of oil painting, starting by stretching canvases myself in a traditional way, using raw linen, and zinc tacks.

My watercolours use the contrast of a precise and careful pencil drawing which is then painted with loose and fluid colour.
Jane Bisby
After working as a biologist and then a primary school teacher, I came to art in my fifties.  I did various art courses in Bristol and found that ceramics was my favourite thing.  Partly it was the process that attracted me.  I experimented with wood-fired kilns, bonfire firing, and wood-ash glazes.  I now make life easy for myself with an electric kiln.
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I enjoy decorating my pots with the wildflowers and insects I find in the Welsh hills where I live.  My recent ceramics are decorated with the wildflowers that grow in the meadow in front of my house.  I am trying to capture the delight of walking through this meadow in June.  In the works currently displayed, I have depicted 16 different species of meadow flowers.
Lucy Goff

​After retiring from work I taught myself to crochet and soon developed a passion for all things yarn related.  Then about four years ago I attended a workshop with the opportunity to try various different styles of braid making, of which ply-split braiding appealed to me as the most versatile.  Our teacher was Julie Hedges, one of the leading experts in this technique, and I followed up the taster event with further training sessions with her.

It seems this style of braiding is found extensively in north-west India, where it was used to make camel girths and regalia.  Whereas these were made using goat hair yarn, my pieces are all 100% cotton.
Although the technique can be used to make amazing sculptural pieces, I have so far limited my work to wearable items, enjoying the variety achievable simply by playing with colours.​

I also make to order: to match a special outfit, in military colours, and I have even made a set of wristbands for a Morris dance side.