I understand you graduated from Brighton University with a degree in Wood, Metal, Ceramics and Plastics in 2008, what’s been happening to you since then?
After that I did a group show with my course – we all went to ‘New Designers’ together. I got a few exhibition opportunities from that, solo and group shows. I’ve put on some paper diorama workshops – I have another coming up soon with the unravelled group, a local craft organisation that I’m involved with – www.unravelled.org.uk. I’ve also made paper props for a fashion stylist.
Your tree ruler cutouts – I’ve seen those in several shows. They’re so simple and memorable. How did you get the idea?
I was given a folding ruler at university, specifically to look at the hinge, to see if it would work with another piece. It didn’t, but then I thought, it would be so fun to carve the ruler into trees because I was thinking about fairytale forests at the time.
Recently I got an email from someone in Peru saying they’d bought one of my ruler forests – I was so excited to hear that one of them had got all the way to Lima!
How did you get into working with paper?
I went to Japan on an exchange as part of my course and picked up using paper there, because they use it so much in their culture. Even little things – like the way they fold chopstick holders. Rather than roll them in a plain piece of paper, they’ll fold it in a nice way. The stationery there is amazing.
When I came back in my final year I didn’t just want to work with woodcarving, as I had been previously, so I found a way to combine the two materials. I love to use Fabriano paper – it’s so nice. A lot of bookbinders use it. It’s really good quality and comes in a yummy range of colours.
What are your current inspirations?
I did a workshop recently with another artist at Kew Gardens and we worked with this amazing scientist. Her name’s Daniella Zappi, she specialises in cacti and coffee plants. She’s Brazilian and she’s so full of life. At the workshop she brought along loads of pressed specimens and a huge range of labels of how they categorise things. Most of the things there were beautiful, but there’s some really horrible things in jars, for example the cacti, because obviously they can’t press a cactus. They looked like big jellyish creatures.
From this, I’ve started making origami flowers and pressing them, and finding different ways to patchwork them together. I’ve bought this little Victorian flower press and I want to make a series of origami specimens. I’d like to have a long chain of them running through this press. Also, the Booth Museum have some old specimen cases for sale. It would be really nice to display my paper patchwork in one of those. I want to do a whole paper patchwork quilt too… Exciting!
For sales and commissions, Lizzie can be contacted on 07947 910 254 or via her website at www.lizziethomas.co.uk. Her visual blog at http://lizziethomas.tumblr.com/ is also worth checking out for pictures of the Kew Gardens workshop!
Written by Jo Dimbleby
