Joanne Bowes
A Degree-educated textile artist with a passion for natural dyeing, contact printing, and exploring the tactile wonders of the world around me. My creative journey is fuelled by a deep love for nature’s forms, colours, and textures, which I weave into everything from handmade sketchbooks and scarves to nature-inspired stitched textiles and semi-abstract watercolour landscapes.
Textile Artist | Facilitator: Community Arts, Culture, and Heritage | Creative Workshop OrganiserTextile Artist | Facilitator: Community Arts, Culture, and Heritage | Creative Workshop Organiser
I delight in experimenting with my own natural dyes and paints, and recently, I’ve been incorporating foraged earth pigments into my work. The surprises that emerge from direct leaf prints, with their organic patterns, and the ‘out of the blue’ results of cyanotype prints—developed under the sun—are some of the most rewarding aspects of my creative process.
In addition to these, I love working with print, collage, and batik, often giving new life to old textiles. I also love creative projects that are deeply rooted in local and social history, exploring how these stories can be woven into art to create meaningful, compelling narratives.
Community Arts, Culture & Heritage
As Owner of the Workhouse Dunstable and Co-Chair of the Dunstable Cultural Consortium, I have been at the heart creating and delivering a wide range of local Arts projects.
My role ranges from sourcing and supporting local Artists to develop and deliver activities, helping to organise local events to conceiving and delivering my own projects to meet local needs.
Textile Artist
Throughout the years I have worked on many projects which I am proud to put my name against…
- Herts Textile Arts
- Spirella Unbound, Broadway Arts, 2024
- Material Evidence, Courtyard Arts, 2023
- What Lies Beneath, Southern Maltings, Ware 2022
- Habitat, Hertford Theatre and Baldock Arts & Heritage 2019-2020
- Ebb and Flow, Parndon Mill Gallery 2018
- The Fabric of Life, Courtyard Arts 2016
- Herts Open Studios 2019-2025
- Dunstable Heritage Textile Group 2018-2025
- University of Hertfordshire – Degree Show 2018
- Artists Network Bedfordshire 2012 -2019
- British Schools Museum, Hitchin
- Stotfold Mill
- Red Dot Gallery
- Parkside, Ampthill
- Moat Fram Gallery
- Ivinghoe Hub
- Weaving Narratives, Bedfordshire Libraries 2016
- Bromham Mill 2016
- Artists Meet, Rickmansworth 2017
- NOHAT, Panacea Museum 2017
- Mentmore Arts Festival 2014 – 2017
- Upstairs Gallery, 2015-2017
- Three Hares Gallery, Olney 2017
- Threads of Time, Hertford Archives 2015
- Discover 2014-2017
- Ivinghoe Hub 2014, 2015
- Mardleybury Gallery 2015
- From the Earth, Mardlebury Gallery 2016
- University of Bedfordshire Degree Show 2011
Education & Employment
I have also trained with and been employed by many fine institutions…
- 1984-2010 Career in Administration, Marketing Communications, PR, Teaching and Education Management
- 2000 Certificate in Education, Post 16 – De Monfort University
- 2008 Foundation Diploma in Art (Distinction) – – University of Bedfordshire
- 2010 Foundation Degree in Art (Distinction) – University of Bedfordshire
- 2012 BA (Hons) Contemporary Applied Art (2:1) – Textiles) University of Hertfordshire
- 2013 Pop Up Art Gallery, Dunstable
- 2017-2025 Owner of The Workhouse Gallery Dunstable
- 2019 to present Co Chair Dunstable Cultural Consortium