Growing up in the countryside in a rural hamlet, deep in the North of England, textile artist Emily Yeadon was surrounded by open fields and ancient woodlands, with the Yorkshire Dale mountains towering above the horizon. So it comes as no surprise that her art is very much inspired by her childhood landscapes.
“My work is heavily influenced by a particular museum that I discovered at the age of eleven while I was studying at a performing arts boarding school in Tring, UK,” she admitted in an interview with Enchanted Living Magazine. “The Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum is famous for holding one of the finest collections of stuffed mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects, and this amazing collection of animals is what triggered my obsession with taxidermy.”
And so, fueled by her childhood memories, she took to fabric, thread, and paint, creating an unbelievable realistic collection of faux taxidermy, that consists of insects and other small creatures. While taxidermy still greatly inspires her work, her creative process requires a different set of tools and thankfully, no animals are harmed in the process.
“One evening, I randomly decided to dust off my old sewing machine and rekindled my love for textiles,” she recalled. “I gradually began to incorporate fabrics and machine and hand embroidery into my wire creations at the very end of 2017.” Her progress on that front alone is remarkable.
