School of Art, Design and Media (ADM)

I joined Portsmouth in 1998, having previously taught in Further Education and Community Arts. I also set up and ran 'Gallery Zero One’, a retail and gallery space, specialising in fashion and textile related products. In my own practice, I have explored the possibilities of narrative and illustrative textiles, using feminist literature, domestic artefacts and the deeds of my house as sources of inspiration.

My ongoing project, The Craft Circle, brings together local older women and University of Portsmouth students to exchange skills and ideas centred on traditional domestic crafts such as knitting.

Current Research^{[Back to top]}

Noble, S. (In preparation). Tension: creativity, credibility and self in traditional domestic craft. An exploration by ethnographical study and practice.  
My research, based on my experience with The Craft Circle and aiming towards a PhD and associated articles, investigates the evaluation of traditional domestic craft techniques within academia and the wider design community, and how, when they are used by the designer, they are subjugated to become the conduit of the idea, with the craft itself becoming relegated to a lower position in the visual hierarchy. The craft is lifted from its vernacular context and redefined by the (higher) artist/designer, thus alienating the community within which the skills and traditions are held and practised. The reading of such work requires the viewer to understand the appropriation and subversion of the techniques used, again creating distance from the traditional practitioner.

Previous Projects^{[Back to top]}

The Little Flower Project

The Craft Circle evolved from a previous project called ‘Little Flower’. This was run in conjunction with a sheltered workshop in Chennai, India, where visually-impaired local women, who would otherwise be destitute, are taught to weave. The project was then expanded with the support of University of Portsmouth and The British Council, with students from CCi, the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Chennai and the SCS Kothari Academy for Women, Chennai, using the resulting cloth to develop a range of products.

Exhibitions [joint]^{[Back to top]}

Noble, S. et al. (2010, Feb-Mar).A Few Lines. At Portsmouth: Eldon/SPACE.
I have always taken a multi disciplinary approach to my own practice, but at the core has always been drawing. For me, drawing is the visualisation of internalised information and the processing of visual data and stimuli. My research has been concerned with the familial environment and the ‘home as studio’ that many women work within. This has led to an exploration of drawing expressed through traditional domestic craft, through stitch.

Working with textile techniques allowed the drawing to become more substantial, the means by which the representation of something is transposed into a physical object. There is substance in fabric, depth and richness of colour. Beyond the materiality of the artefact there is still the idea, concept, gesture, message. The work exhibited, whether made with scissors or stitch, is all created with rescued materials. I enjoy the challenge of creating harmony from disparate oddments of paper and fabrics that have had previous lives.