If successful, I would use the bursary to develop a new, ambitious body of work that builds on my MFA research…where I explored feminist storytelling through ceramic vessels and woven textiles. This project would centre on the voices of working women, past and present… using creative practice to listen, amplify, and share their stories.
My aim is to work closely with local communities, through conversations, workshops, and shared making…to co-develop a large-scale sculptural installation that celebrates female voices across time. Made with clay, textiles, and recycled objects, the central piece would reflect the lived experience of women across the region… a powerful, collective artwork that could be gifted to a public venue or museum as a lasting legacy.
Community consultation will underpin every stage of the process… supported by research at the Bowes Museum and local archives to ensure the work is grounded in place, memory, and shared heritage. Alongside the main piece, I plan to create a series of sculptural wearable artworks that bring intimacy and embodiment to the broader themes…using cloth, clay, and movement as storytelling tools.
Collaboration will be key… particularly with eco textile artist Tally Vassel, and potentially with performers or costume practitioners to explore new, dynamic forms of making. The funding would also support travel, material experimentation, including eco dyes, clays, and natural fibres…and time to shape this vision into reality.
This project offers a bold step forward in my practice…consolidating existing themes while opening up new possibilities for scale, engagement, and storytelling. I want to test how craft processes can function as public acts of resistance… and how inclusive, collaborative creativity can seed new forms of connection. The work will offer fresh perspectives, anchored in place, made with care, and shared with purpose.
My practice weaves together storytelling, community exchange, and tactile making… creating work that invites participation and connects deeply with place. If selected, I’d engage with Darlington’s people and histories through research, conversation and inclusive workshops with a diverse range of communities. I’m particularly drawn to the region’s textile heritage… and to nearby Middlesbrough’s ceramic legacy… both rich sources for a practice like mine that fuses clay and cloth to reflect on labour, lineage, and overlooked voices.
I’d like to co-create a collaborative artwork that could become a lasting legacy… celebrating all that is great about Darlington and the surrounding areas… while giving voice to the women of the textile industry whose contributions have often gone unrecorded. This piece could be gifted to a local museum or public building…creating a permanent, meaningful connection between the project and place.
The final exhibition would be bold yet grounded… a sculptural installation rooted in memory and material, inviting local audiences to see their own stories reflected and reimagined. By making space for marginalised voices and honouring shared histories, this project has the potential to raise the profile of the creative arts in the region… and make those voices more visible.
I returned to my art practice in 2016 after a 16-year break…raising my two daughters singlehandedly while keeping my creativity quietly alive. That long pause has only deepened my ambition and clarity. Now, I am free to follow what has always burned inside me… to explore the subjects I care about most, and to create work that speaks to others as much as it teaches me. I see my practice as a kind of positive art movement… learning from the past so we can walk more consciously into the future.
My practice is an experimental engagement with ceramics, textiles, and found materials—fused together into sculptural forms that act as vessels of memory… containers of story, place, and lived experience. I use traditional craft processes as a way to question power and amplify voices… particularly feminist, ancestral, and diasporic narratives often missing from the archive.
Recent works include “talking pots,” a development from my earlier “gossip pots,” which weave together textile, clay, and organic matter. These pieces embody the idea of quantum feminism—that feminine energy, though often silenced, still shifts reality across time.
I completed my MFA at Falmouth University in May 2025, where my final major project Fusion included outdoor installations, clay forms, and an artist book. I’ve exhibited at The Cut’s Ink Festival (2025), the Black Barn Studios MA Showcase, and the Merlina Gallery, and was Resident Floral Installation Artist at the British Embassy in Paris from 1992–1998.
My studio is built around sustainable principles… powered by solar energy and harvesting rainwater for use in making and cleaning. While it’s a modest, weathered structure, it supports my belief that environmental care and creative practice are inseparable… a quiet, regenerative space where materials, stories, and energy are cocreated.
I often work site-responsively and collaboratively, making space for others to co-author the work… using workshops, walking rituals, and local archives as part of my research. I’m particularly drawn to historic or overlooked spaces and communities, investigating stories of labour, migration, and magic.
2023–2025 MFA, Falmouth University (awarded 2025)
1974–1976 Foundation Course, Great Yarmouth College of Art & Design
1975–1978 Diploma, Textile Design, Great Yarmouth College of Art & Design
Yes, I regularly organise and lead both private and community-based workshops, either independently or with other artists. These focus on wire and plaster, clay, textiles, and natural materials, offering hands-on, inclusive experiences. Running workshops is a key part of my practice.
Yes…I was commissioned as Resident Floral Installation Artist at the British Embassy in Paris from 1992 to 1998. Over six years, I designed and created large-scale natural installations for official events, often responding to the building’s heritage and incorporating historical artefacts from the Embassy’s collection.
The role required a balance of creative vision and diplomatic sensitivity, producing work that honoured tradition while offering bold, contemporary expression. I collaborated with British design houses such as Osborne & Little, produced installations for events featuring the England Rugby Team, and created floral work for cultural icons including Vivienne Westwood.
This period shaped my approach to materials, placement and storytelling. It deepened my interest in how physical spaces, especially historical and ceremonial ones…can be activated through art. The scale and visibility of the work taught me to think both practically and poetically.
Yes, my work was featured in Haus-a-Rest magazine ( issue 59 ) following my MFA final major project. I also appear in Illustration: A Theoretical and Contextual Perspective by Professor Alan Male (Bloomsbury, 2024), where my practice is highlighted in the chapter on the polymath principle. Both features are available to view via my website or Instagram
Email: diana.capstick05@gmail.com
Address: The Old Coach House, Yaxley Road, Eye, Suffolk, IP23 8DP, GB
Local Authority: West Suffolk
