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It was not long after graduating from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee that the need to find exhibiting opportunities for creative embroidery occurred to two textile designers, Pauline Hann and Angela Taylor. A consultation of college records gave them a list of graduates who had shown an interest in embroidery or had studied embroidery as part of their qualification. After contacting them with a proposal, 'Embryo' was formed.
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From the start, the impulse was to push the art of embroidery towards new levels and, over the next few years, several highly successful exhibitions were held both in the Dundee area and throughout Scotland. An early exhibition in London at the Orangery brought the work of the Embryo members to a new audience. However, the joint exhibition Three Strands in 1988, which brought together the three contemporary Scottish groups from Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow, marked a pivotal point in the group's development. As a direct result of Three Strands, Embryo was invited by the Embroiderers' Guild to exhibit at their Hampton Court headquarters and received much encouragement from Guild staff and the Chairman at the time, Anne Joyce.
In the years since then, exhibitions have been held almost every two years, the most recent being in the Riverside Gallery, Stonehaven, and the group has gone from strength to strength. Prizes donated by Coats and Grampian TV have promoted the group's activities to a wider audience.
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The membership base has remained around 40 although, most recently, membership has been widened to include, by invitation, practising artists working in the medium of creative textiles. Embryo members follow their own fields of interest, individuals undertaking several prestigious commissions, and many are actively engaged in educating the next generation of textile artists. Regular workshops by leading exponents of the art form keep the group's skills at the cutting edge of creative textile art.
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With the approach of the year 2000, work has already started to amalgamate the three groups into one composite Scottish group, a move which offers the artists great opportunity for the future. An ambitious combined exhibition, which will tour Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh, will mark the end of one era but the start of another exciting phase for the textile arts in Scotland. The strong personal relationships forged over the last twenty years will continue to produce exciting and stimulating work.
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This article is from The World of Embroidery, Volume 50 No.2, © Sheila Mortlock.
highlights from March 1999 issue