My very own silk road

When I decided to study Textile Design at the age of 18, I didn’t know where I would go from there. I never dreamt I would end up on the other side of the world, teaching and working with Cambodian women who weave silk in much the same way that I did back at the Winchester School of Art.

Being at the Artisans’ Association of Cambodia (AAC), has given me the chance to work with so many groups that are producing beautiful hand-woven silk. I have travelled to small villages in the middle of nowhere and met women weaving silk under their wooden stilted houses, a long way from the London boutique where their silk might be used in the design of fancy handbag.

After being here almost a year, I had spent quite a lot of time thinking about the women I met weaving silk under their houses. I wondered how I could help them learn some of the valuable skills I was able to learn in the comfort of an art studio. I decided to create some teaching materials that would help them use their surroundings as a source of inspiration for colours, materials and ideas that could be incorporated into their product designs.

In recent months, I have had the privilege on three separate occasions of teaching different groups of weavers from three different provinces the materials I’ve developed. It’s been an encouraging experience to see the women learn about colour and design for the first time and then put that into practice on the loom. It’s always a joy to see their faces when they paint a new design for the first time, and even better when it is made into actual fabric.

Through these teaching opportunities, I’ve come to realize how something we take for granted, like knowing how to make the colour green, is something that Khmers are never taught at school. This makes it even more special, that I can give these weavers just a little of what I have learnt in the UK.

You never know how God might end up using your skills and experiences, maybe in unimaginable ways and in far-away places…