Stewart Francis Easton // Illustrator and embroidery artist // London uk

Breaking the traditional boundaries of craft, Stewart Francis Easton’s work fuses together hand embroidery, sonic art and design based illustration. For Easton’s latest works he has been removing the ‘storyline’ of a visual narrative by creating geometric / graphic forms in stitch. This reassembling of his work ethic in a conscious measured layout enables the viewer to be free of their preconceptions of story. Using a process of abstract minimal stitch he is enabling himself to create a visual reference to an ever changing pathway and reaching for a utopian form. Easton’s stitch work blurs the lines between craft, illustration and fine art making his work dynamic and progressive and a must see. Stewart Francis Easton is a visual storyteller based in London who works in thread, ink, paint and digital media.

Check out more of his amazing work on his website or instagram

1. I began my #CraftWithConscience series as a way to simultaneously promote the work of other makers and to discuss the complicated issues surrounding creative inspiration and developing one’s own visual vocabulary. The internet is an ever growing fixture in many artists’ lives and businesses, could you talk about the role the internet plays in your artistic and professional life?

The Internet for me as a multi disciplinary artist has been a goldmine for source material. Since working with sound and stitch and collaborating with other artists the Web has allowed me to make contact with those artists whom are a real inspiration to me and my practice. It’s shown a human side of works and their creators. Growing up in the 90’s and seeing works in books and galleries the artist always seemed outside of my scope of vision. With the super fast growth of the net and especially social media things are a little closer and accessible. Though there it does have it’s downside too. We seem to have lost our ability to look outside, and slow down. I was taking to my son (who has just gotten his first record player) the other day about collecting records and going to record fairs and having to search through magazines and speak to people about music. And then the excitement of finding and discovering a record. We don’t do this anymore, life is too instant now. It’s why we sew!

2. Where do you find inspiration for your work? In what ways has the internet and/or social media impacted your design process?

I tend to find inspiration in most places. Galleries are the main point for inspiration. Seeing the physical painting, drawing, artwork etc. I don’t think anything can really beat this for the drive to better yourself and to sit and create. Aside from galleries music and story plays a major part in my design process. Trying to interpret a tone in a piece of music or the rhythm in a story plays an important role in my process more so than viewing an image on social media on a small hand held device. The net has been great in giving a platform for the DIY artist. I wouldn’t say there is a spirit of punk as such but everyone now has a voice- if they want to use it. So in this way I get to see works which not are being driven and promoted by Collectors and Dealers. It’s gonna be interesting to see haw this develops.

3. How have you, as an artist, found your creative voice?

It’s quite ironic really that I criticise social media and its time consuming habits, but I guess that at the start of my creative practice it was Myspace which propelled me and gave me the confidence to push on.

4. Sites like Pinterest and Instagram are popular places for artists’ to share their own work. They also act as public visual archives, often leading to creative work by others that walks the line between ‘inspiration’ and ‘infringement.’ Have you encountered copies of your work online and how does it affect you? What are your strategies for dealing with it?

I’ve been quite lucky in that i’ve not been ‘copied’ as such. I once had a chap contact me and ask if I could create the artwork for his latest release. I had to decline as was too busy. Then a friend sent me a photo of a flyer - the guy had copied one of my drawings for the artwork. It was awful! Looked real bad, so I jest left him to it. He had a real bad record sleeve - Karma! My partner is an illustrator and has had her worked copied before, and also used for T-shirts etc. without her permission. You just have contact and hope they are decent folk. I think one of her designs which was used was licensed to a major corporation so when she contacted and told them this and that she would be contacting the company and pass their details on these smaller companies tend to flap. But I have heard of bigger companies stealing designs etc.

5. Do you have any advice for aspiring artists or creative business people?

My main advice for new artists is to be patient. To breakthrough takes time, takes years. Lots of folk try and push. Spend a year or two and don’t reach the heights that they want then they give up. It’s strange path to follow as it’s ever moving, your goal posts are not static so you need to be flexible too. So be patent, flexible and keep on creating.