Amelia Poole of Ecouture Textiles

Amelia Poole is an artist raised by scientists who brings her love of fibers and textiles, botany, chemistry, and history to her teaching and textile art. She received a BA and MFA in Woven and Printed Textile Design and Construction from the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, Farnham, Surrey, UK. Her current work focuses on using natural dyes, local and traditional, to create extraordinary color, pattern, and texture on cloth and paper.

Raised in Plympton, Massachusetts, Amelia has been sewing, knitting, and exploring textile techniques and processes since she can remember; she even has a Fiber Godmother! Amelia has worked in the wardrobe department at Plimoth Plantation, as a gardener and estate manager, a personal/yachting assistant, and a website manager for the World Ocean Observatory. Her sailing job brought her to Brooksville, Maine, where she has lived for the past 15 years.

Amelia began to develop her skills in eco-printing (botanical contact printing) when her daughter was very young and weaving or screen printing were no longer viable options with the “help” of her new assistant. Eco-printing allows Amelia a look beyond the usual green of leaves, to see their shape and architecture, and explore their chemistry. While eco-printing or botanical contact printing is a relatively new process, Amelia applies her deep knowledge of cloth, traditional dye techniques, and botany to create extremely detailed, permanent prints on all natural fibers.

When fresh leaves are unavailable, Amelia explores Japanese Shibori and traditional indigo dyeing techniques. Shibori is a resist dyeing method using binding, stitching and wrapping to create sculptural pieces which are then dyed. When the dyeing is complete and the binding removed, the resist pattern is revealed. Amelia uses traditional techniques to create modern works of art. She thinks of each piece not as a finished product but as a source of information for her next project.

Amelia sells her work at Fine Craft Shows throughout New England and at her shop, Makers’ Market Shop and Studio. She teaches eco-printing, indigo shibori, natural dyeing, and paper marbling at her studio in Brooksville, at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Plymouth Center for Restoration Arts and Forgotten Trades, and Monson Arts. Her work is held in many private collections and in the permanent collection at the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Massachusetts.