Board Members

Lynne Hocking

Chair

Lynne is a handwoven textile designer-creator and a trained scientist, working at the intersection of art and science. She first learned to weave using a backstrap loom in south east Asia, and now works from her Wasps studio in Aberdeen.

An academic background in human genetics research inspired a wider interest in creating textile patterns and objects based on data – a natural synergy with weaving, since the technique is a precursor to digital technologies.

As well as creating work on her own for sale and exhibition, Lynne also runs co-creation projects on data-driven design with makers across Scotland.

Stefanie Cheong

Stefanie has a multi-faceted practice within the craft sector. She trained as a jeweller at Glasgow School of Art and her work uses sustainable materials, recycled metals and environmentally processes.

She delivers projects, exhibitions and workshops collaboratively with arts organisations and other educational facilities. She has extensive experience in teaching, having worked as a returning visiting lecturer at Glasgow School of Art. Other posts include tutor for local authorities throughout Scotland, within Schools, museums, galleries and art organisations UK wide.

Her main focus is to inspire and empower people through making, and encourage sustainability within craft. Projects she has initiated include O-PIN and Exchangeworks?. Stefanie also holds a part time post as Craft Development officer at Fife Contemporary.

Clare Waddle

Vice Chair

Clare is one part of zero waste design duo | Yellow Broom | and graduate of Edinburgh College of Art. Based within the Cairngorms National Park she co-designs and makes a collection of handcrafted environmentally sensitive lighting , utilitarian product design & fabrication.

Elected Professional Member of Visual Arts Scotland, she served on its Selection and Hanging Committee for several years. She has exhibited internationally including twice being selected for Contemporary Scottish Craft at London Design Festival with Emergents and Craft Scotland of whom she is also a member and part of their Advisory group.

She took part in SHIFT Iceland going on to be awarded the VAS Inches Carr Trust Award and in 2020 took part in a British Council Crafting Futures residency in Oaxaca, Mexico and is an active member of AAS Closing the Loop group.

Netty Sopata

Netty is a kiltmaker and designer based in Ness on The Isle of Lewis. She established her label, ‘Diggory Brown’, in 2008 and has completed work for Christopher Kane, MATCHESFASHION.COM, the BBC and leading names in the music industry.

Over the past few years she has begun to work collaboratively on creative projects in Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Mexico.

Carrie Fertig

Membership Secretary

Carrie is a visual artist working in video, performance, sound, installation, sculpture, and thanks to Applied Arts Scotland’s DISTANCE programme, virtual reality. She uses flameworked glass as musical instruments for her band Torcher Chamber Arkestra, and engagement methods in her participatory work on fundamental human events and emotional processes.

She is the 2020 recipient of the Jane Adams Wait Performance Residency at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY and inaugural recipient of the UNFIX Residency at The Barn, Banchory, broadcast for the climate crisis-centric UNFIX Festival.

Originally from New York, Carrie moved to Britain in 2003, and recently settled in Aberdeenshire. Challenging ideas around craft, she uses glass as a tool to do good in the universe through participation and collaboration toward well-being.

Amy Dunnachie

Treasurer

Amy is a socially engaged artist and maker, who lives and works on her home island of Jura. She works predominantly with found objects in a resourceful and environmentally conscious way. The playful, honest and often uplifting narrative of her visual work is largely informed by her life-long experience of island community. Her dedication to working towards ‘connection’ manifests itself in participatory projects centred around exchange, the environment, community and our own sense of being.

A background in silversmithing and jewellery lends a sculptural and practical approach to her making practice, exemplified by her wearable pieces as well as her participatory work. Amy’s use of found objects allows her to collect stories about our environment, to celebrate our unique understandings of ‘place’ whilst also considering our past lives, our dynamic present and our hopeful futures.

Garvin Sealy

Garvin has benefited from a trans-Atlantic art education from Eckerd College, Edinburgh College of Art, and Rochester Institute of Technology. At these institutions, he developed expertise in stained glass, ceramics, printmaking, bronze casting, glass blowing, metal fabrication and sculpture. His education in art and heritage conservation has come from working at Wells Cathedral, All Souls College in Oxford, the Roman Baths in York, the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, The Landmark Society of Western New York, and most recently at the V&A London.

With his British, Caribbean and Indian cultural heritage informing a wide-ranging artistic practice, many of his creations have been exhibited internationally, with some residing in the collections of Grayson Perry, Magdalene Odundo and the National Trust Scotland. He is currently a Founder and Co-director of EqualiTree Community Interest Company, which provides training and experiential opportunities in heritage crafts for women, minorities and other historically marginalized groups.

Jeni Reid

Jeni is a visual artist based in Angus who enjoys working with paper, fabric, fibre and people. Having studied at Glasgow University in the eighties and carving out careers as a waitress, barmaid and shop assistant, they returned to academia in 1995 when they trained as a Social Worker at Stirling University. A not very interesting but nevertheless life limiting illness cut that career short and Jeni spent much of the early 2000’s adapting to a life that hadn’t turned out as expected.

Creativity helped to make sense of that life and as Jeni’s interest in photography grew they decided to study once more, this time for an HND at Dundee and Angus College. Jeni learned about cyanotype printing, one of the earliest and most accessible forms of photography. This technique, along with digital photography, knitting, spinning and sewing, forms the backbone of their practice.

Jeni is fascinated by the weirdness of everyday life, loves objects that tell a story and is easily distracted by seagulls.