Between Paper and Cloth

This new book from bestselling author and textile artist Cas Holmes explores paper, cloth and thread and the connections between material and place.

In this book, through Cas’s latest projects as well as additional artists’ works, you will be taken on a journey through their inspirations and how you can use your own surroundings to inspire your artistic practice through different forms of recording, collecting and recycling. There are examples of how these artists use interesting materials and techniques in the pursuit of textile art innovation, and how you can do the same.

Cas explores how different materials interact with each other, and how that can act as a microcosm for how we interact with our wider environment. She uses a variety of materials such as silk, household paint, wallpaper, ink and thread that otherwise may not be used in the same context, and explores the dynamic qualities and textures that come from overlapping these different worlds.

Cas’s many sources of inspiration include gardening, which can be observed in the found objects she transforms from old and weathered to layered and landscape-like, and her time spent studying in Japan, which has impacted how she sees and uses different materials to achieve shadow and reflection through textile manipulation.