Fleur Woods is a contemporary fibre artist based in the beautiful rural village of Upper Moutere (near Nelson, New Zealand) She is surrounded by vineyards, hop farms, orchards and country gardens - it makes sense  that her work is largely inspired by nature. Fleur describes her style of her work as contemporary stitched paintings. Coming to stitch as a mixed media artist she has taught herself a variety of embroidery techniques which generally don't follow traditional embroidery but beautifully serve the kind of mark making she loves to create.From so called "Nana craft" to discovering your "creative soul". Fleur talks in this episode about her love of nature, connecting people, encouraging creativity and inspiring others. She shares how she came to be a full time artist starting with mixed media and paint, how she discovered embroidery through her love of mark making, how vintage fabrics resonated so much with her but she was never sure why until later in her practice. She talks how connected she feels with past generations of women and how she feels stitching is part of her DNA, part of her "maker genes". We chat about her entrepreneurial approach to her business and art practice which includes creating and selling beautiful personally assembled kits and textile treasure packs, teaching workshops around NZ and in Australia and building a hugely engaged community and audience across the world through social media. AND she tells us about her most recent exciting project and new baby, her own book The Untamed Thread, which is out next month.https://www.fleurwoodsart.com/Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!See the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/ Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043