Stephanie Greenwood

I've had a fascination with light and colour since my childhood. I collected rocks and minerals and feathers and leaves and was captivated by the complex patterns found in them, as wells as in flowers, butterflies and birds. I have dabbled in many crafts and art forms over the years discovering and learning and working with different media.
I was given an old Rolleiflex camera at a very young age, which started me on a life-long interest in trying to capture what fascinated me with the camera lens.
I also enjoyed working with glass beads, weaving off-loom designs reflecting the colourful patterns in nature.
My camera and box of beads was mostly put aside during the years of young motherhood and earning a living. I rediscovered the joy of working with beads during the 4 years I was living and working in Zambia as a VSO volunteer. I taught beadwork to the young girls at the residential centre where I lived, which we then sold in the local markets.
I also picked up my camera with a new enthusiasm, struck by the African light, colours, landscapes, skies and also the beauty of the young girls surrounding me.
After Zambia, I lived in America for 10 years at an Ecovillage in upstate New York. I was invited to join an artists' cooperative, and produced jewellery which was sold in our shop on the high street. In my work I primarily used seed beads, crystals, pearls, semi-precious stones and off-loom bead weaving.
When I wasn't producing art for the shop, I was roaming around with my camera, taken with the wildlife and landscapes on my doorstep.
Coming back to England, farming and gardening has taken up most of my time, and my interest in jewellery-making has waned. Wellies and wax jackets and digging in the dirt are not really compatible with wearing jewellery!
However, the urge to work with beads, especially glass seed beads, has not abated. Nor has the drive to pick up my camera to capture the patterns of light and colour in nature. And now I have at last found how to creatively combine the two - I am bead embroidering onto my photographs, using very small glass seed beads. It is very slow work which helps me to discover and illuminate the intricacies I have photographed, bead by bead.