We were lucky to catch up with Frieda Strachan recently and have shared our conversation below.
Frieda, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I’ve been really fortunate to work on a number of projects close to my heart – my mural, Sanctuary, made for VictoriArts Road (the first outdoor fiber mural in the UK!), founding the FibreKnot Meet-up to offer creatives a space for community in my hometown, and also working with filmmaker Jason Sinclair on the Feeling Fine projects and films. You can find information about all of the above projects on my website, but the most personal and meaningful for me, was collaborating with one of my closest friends, Shane Strachan (no relation!) on Doric Dwams in early 2020.
Doric is the Scots language spoken when I am from – deans is a dreamlike state, like when you are waking from a deep sleep and everything is still a little hazy. Shane wrote a series of 10 haiku in Doric, inspired by Aberdeen, where we both lived at the time, and I interpreted them into ten woven wall hangings. I then embroidered haiku onto each piece. The reason it was so meaningful was not only because I was collaborating with someone I have known for most of my life, but because the project was created to raise funds for Rape Crisis Grampian, an organization very close to my heart.
As a survivor of sexual assault, raising awareness of their services, and showing gratitude for the support they have offered me since my assault is really important to me, so to be able to use my art as a way of doing this was really special.
Shane is someone who has always been there for me while I’ve been dealing with difficulties around my assault – and has also been a champion of my creativity. It was his idea to collaborate on the project, and him who essentially brought it to life, and I’m endlessly grateful to him for that. Shane recently published a poetry book containing the Doric Dwams, in a book titled Dwams. The pieces were hung in independent local businesses around the city of Aberdeen forming a fiber trail to promote wellbeing and mindfulness as people walked around to view the project. We hung and launched the trail the week before Scotland went into it’s first lockdown at the start of the pandemic. I’ve always assumed that, unfortunately, no one saw the work, we also were unable to display them in an exhibition together as originally planned. While promoting his book on the radio I heard Shane speak about it differently – that many people walked the trail as part of their daily walk! It had been the one part of the project that I still felt sad about, and it totally changed my outlook on it.
The pieces were auctioned off online to raise funds for the work that Rape Crisis do, and now and again we will get tagged on instagram when someone shares one of the pieces, and it fills my cup. I was so proud of all of it – how my work looked, how beautiful Shane’s haiku were, that people rallied to support the project whether it was local businesses who hung the pieces or people walking the trail. The most fulfilling part of the project was being invited to work with service users of Rape Crisis on free weaving workshops where they could make mini woven panels using the yarns that made up the trail pieces. As a service user myself, it was really meaningful to be invited into that space and create with them, as well as have Shane read them the haiku for the first time.
Frieda, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a fiber artist from a small village in the north east of Scotland called Inverallochy, and have been (confidently) creating since 2017. I relocated to Los Angeles in November 2023, to be with my now husband and work from a studio space in NonPlusUltra. My husband Paul is part of the NPU collective that manage the space, and I feel really lucky to have been able to instantly hav creative space, and be a part of a creative community.- something that took me a few years to find in Scotland! I created the first fiber mural in the UK, I have a piece of work in the collection at Aberdeen Art Gallery, acquired the year it won Museum of the Year in the UK, and was the facilitator of the Luminate Award winning project Feeling Fine.
I am primarily a weaver, but over the past three years have also worked with punch needle, tufting, macrame and embroidery. I create wall hangings, cushions and jewellery focused on texture, color and shape, and have recently been working on some tufted furniture pieces. I like making work that draws the eye and excited the ‘viewer’, but as they are tactile, I encourage folks to hold and touch my work too – I don’t think it is just for viewing! This is one of the reasons I am keen to upholster with my own tufted and woven textiles, so I can introduce new ways of interacting with my work. I recently tufted a church pew, wove a lampshade, and tufted a footstool for an exhibition at NonPlusUltra, and I encouraging people to literally pull up a pew on my work was really cool!
Before moving to LA, my work was primarily around facilitation of creative projects, most recently the Feeling Find project, which were a series of workshops with residents in sheltered housing in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. In Scotland I set up and facilitated a weekly creative meet-up for fiber-based makers and artists called FiberKnot which culminated in an online programme of free workshops and guest speakers including Steven West of Westknits and Sarah Trail of the Social Justice sewing Academy. I was really proud of how far the community group came not only as a collective, but seeing individuals confidence grow, see the sharing of ideas and peer support was so affirming. The programme of speakers was a highlight as I fundraiser to offer it for free while still paying the speakers for their labour and time.
Community and support is really important to me in all aspects of life, and something I am keen to be a part of and create now I am in LA. In April, my friend and studio buddy Maggie Sanfilippo and I started a new meet-up called Creative Allies for creatives working in any and all mediums and areas to hang out, share space and talk about their work and ideas, I’m really excited about it!
I’ve only been in LA for 6 months, but already so much has changed for me, and I am excited to see how it changes my creative practice. Moving here is like starting from scratch again! I’m not established or known at all here, and I have left the comfort of the community I had found and made for myself in Scotland. In 2019 I had a ‘yes year’ when I put myself out there for as many creative projects as I could – I was even cast in a creative TV show (I turned it down to facilitate a fundraiser for another project I was part of!) and that is my plan for 2024. The year is already a third of the way through… but there is till time for exciting things to happen!
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I had always wanted to be an artist when I was little, and somewhere along the line, it had been portrayed to me that this was unrealistic, a waste of time or unattainable. And all of this was because it was about money and career – and when you are young, that isn’t where your brain is at, and it isn’t what is important to you. But my dad sort of drove what I believed I was supposed to be passionate about, and at some point I stopped drawing, I stopped coveting creative materials and outlets, and got into other stuff. I still liked art, but it was firmly as an outside – something to look upon and not participate in. My sister moved to London when I was at university in Scotland, and I visited her one summer and beat the streets alone going to what felt like every gallery in the city, and it just inspired something in me. When I left university, I went to study printmaking and photography at college in Glasgow, and won an award for my year – but again, once the course was over, went back on ‘career mode’. I ended up moving to London and working for Tate Gallery and getting so much creative knowledge and background and experience. When I moved back to Scotland, I missed the creative scene in London, pulled a canvas from my wall, hammered some nails into it and made my first loom – and that was it. I’ve been a DIY maker ever since.
My biggest lesson wasn’t what I always think it is – that everyone is and can be an artist – but in fact, how, when or why you make isn’t important. Do it anyway! Creativity is for anyone, and it can be whatever anyone needs it to be. I believed that you would have to make money from art, I believed that art was something that happened using paint and a canvas, and I believed for a long time that it wasn’t for me. And it took a long time for me to allow myself the space to be creative. I still struggle to call myself an artist out loud – and I think that’s ok too.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
I started weaving during a period of unemployment and depression – I had just moved from London back to Scotland, I had ended a relationship, dropped out of university and couldn’t find work for 6 months. It was really tough, but weaving helped ground me through it. It gave me something to look forward to, it help break up the days that were particularly hard, and it was a slow, mindful activity to calm my anxious mind. Sharing my craft and my story with others is without a doubt the most rewarding part of my practice. I’ve led workshops with people really keen to learn something new who have loved to hear my own story of creativity. I’ve led workshops with kids in school who start the day completely uninterested in taking part in a weaving session who end the day upset that they can’t finish their third weaving of the day. When people spend time with me and leaving feeling the same way I feel when I have spent a few hours weaving, that to me is success. Calm, proud and excited – it’s great!
I’ve spent time teaching weaving as a mindfulness activity to people living with dementia, people living with substance abuse and survivors of abuse. In all of these situations, I’ve felt that we have all shared a piece of ourselves and our experiences, and left each other with a wee bit of kindness, understanding and hope – as well as a new skill!
Contact Info:
- Website: Friedastrachan.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/frieda_strachan
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/friedastrachan