Ahead of the release of her new book 'Soulful Stitch: Finding creativity in crisis', co-authored with Deena Beverley, we sat down to chat with West Dean tutor Cas Holmes to hear about her creative process and why it is so important to embrace uncertainty.

Could you just introduce yourself and what you do?

My name is Cas Holmes, I'm a short course tutor at West Dean College and a practising artist and writer.

What courses are you teaching at West Dean?

At the moment, I'm teaching an unfolding landscape course where we look at how the environment, the place we’re in such as West Dean, or where people are located in the country can inform our work through paper cloth and stitch. We explore the boundaries and break down the boundaries between textiles and painting. A line of drawing in a line of stitch.

You’ve got a couple of courses coming up in London are those in the same realm?

It followers some of the same philosophy because I've always interested in substrates. I challenge what substrates are expected to do. The courses are short introduction to redefining the possibilities of things we can do in collage and found papers as well as working with good quality papers. But in terms of literally punching that paper with a needle and changing the qualities, and it's, of course, it's appropriate for people who stitch, or maybe don't stitch because I've used the same papers, withdrawing classes as a surface for pastel work.

What do the students get from this course and what do you most enjoy about sharing this process with them?

I think one of the most important things about being on a course wherever you are, but particularly here at West Dean, is that you're taken away from the place that you normally are in. You can forget a little bit about the daily concerns that you have, they're put aside and you are immersed in that activity, with whatever tutor you have. With this course, it's about being open to challenges about the creative process, bringing in some of your own skills and then taking them further with some of the learning that you take from being part of the course, with me as an artist.

I always enjoy seeing how students take the process I use and evolve them and adapt them to work with their own development, as opposed to creating pieces that have a similar feel to my own work.

In your own work what's your part of the process, what fulfils you creatively?

Embracing uncertainty, without a doubt. It's the idea that instead of saying what am I going to make it's always for me about what am I going to discover. It’s about finding a way into how I express that, so, if I'm walking to a familiar landscape, it will gently feed into my work through the things I gather, the drawings I make and it might sit for a while, and then I'll come back to it. There's no hurry to produce the work. I'll have several streams of work at different stages at any one time. It's also about filling in pockets of time, which is what I have at the moment. I'm actually writing about working in pockets of time with a fellow artist and author called Deena Beverly, a book called 'Soulful Stitch' and it's how you can create things when you don't have big spaces of time and a large studio to work in and you may have other things at making demands on your life. And bringing it back to this place at West Dean, it's creating a pace of respite, a pace of creative challenge, a place of companionship in working together, and we all need to have that.

I think you've articulated what's special about West Dean. I'm learning that it's not necessarily about the final product, it's the process, it's the people, it's stepping back from the world.

It is and I think any good place of learning, it's about that and I think for me, it's also about my writing I'm choosy about where I want to work because I want to engage people in the understanding that they're going through a process and whilst they will make things that matter to them they may not complete them in my courses, in fact, they almost certainly won't in that limited time. But they will be on their way to discovering it. I get excited towards the end of a course as I see the work coming to fruition and then embracing and being challenged by the teaching. I will always come here for a courses at a different starting point because, as a tutor and as an artist, I embrace uncertainty so I will pull something together that allows us to discover what is we feel like in this space at this time, or how are we going to respond to having a limited set of materials.

Is that the uncertainty uncomfortable for your students?

Absolutely, but I think if you know what you're going to do and going to make when you come here, you're not open to discovery, uncertainty is good. You have to be open to stepping into the unknown a little and being slightly out your comfort zone but in an environment where it's safe to do so. You need those opposites. It's about saying to people, it's okay to experiment, it's okay to not know where the work is going at this stage. But you need to do it within a supportive environment. Those are the conditions in which I operate best. I often don't have an idea of where a piece of work is going to go, it gradually builds. I'm Romani by heritage and we have stopping places along the road, and I align with that idea that I have stopping places in my work where I take a breath, see where it is and then I will move on.

You mentioned your book that’s coming out, can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Yes, ‘Soulful Stitch, Finding Creativity in Crisis’ is my sixth publication and I’m very proud of being able to work on it with fellow artist, Deena Beverly. We've both lived that book! We’re both full-time carers and so we’ve been geographically separated during the writing of this book but also separated through the demands on our time.  This is the essence of the book, to show you how to stimulate creativity, wherever you are, whatever demands you have by just finding that small moment or space in your own time to do something that matters to you. It talks about the healing power of stitch to soothe and console, with the simple act of putting needle into fabric providing a mindful route to inner calm. I believe the restrictions and trials of everyday life can inform your textile work in a positive way, enabling you to develop imaginative new approaches.

'Soulful Stitch by Cas Holmes and Deena Beverley' Batsford October 2024 is available in hardback. Cas also has textiles courses available at West Dean London and Sussex.

Book now.