Vickie Orton

Vickie Orton

Vickie is a textile artist predominantly working with felting and embroidery. Making tactile art is important to Vickie as she is a passionate believer in making art accessible for all. Her work is designed to make people want to touch and engage with it. She has created artworks with moving parts for people to interact with and mazes that can be traced across with a finger. 

Vickie is inspired by the natural landscape and her experiences as a wheelchair user. She is also an oral storyteller and likes to incorporate text into her artwork, including embroidering braille and Bliss symbols.  She likes to create artworks that make people think and to challenge their assumptions about disability. But ultimately, she likes to create works that are positive and make people smile.  

Vickie has exhibited widely and across Yorkshire and the UK. She has had her work included in a DPAC pop up demonstration at Tate Modern. She has created artwork for the National Paralympic Heritage Trust including an interactive game. She has recently completed a commission for Calverley Horticultural Society Show celebrating their centenary.

Image descriptions:

To Walk In Woods
Four artists books of various sizes, with a rough birch bark cover. Each book is tied closed with hessian string which has beads attached to the end of it.

To Walk In Woods Green Maze
The inside cover of the book is lined with paper from an Ordinance Survey map. When opened the inside map cover is 99% obscured. When opened up there is one double page spread which unfolds from the centre of the book. The centre page is folded using a Turkish map fold. The centre page is made from unbleached cotton which is backed onto a random piece of Ordinance Survey map. There is a raised surface on the unbleached cotton which is made from strands of twisted felting wool. The wool creates the pattern of a maze which you can run your fingers over to trace the pattern. 

Calverley Horticultural Society Centenary Commission
A textile piece celebrating the centenary of the Calverley Horticultural Society. The piece depicts a busy allotment with lots of horticulturists and their vegetables! The central text at the top of the piece reads ‘Calverley Show Centenary 1921 – 2021’, with ‘horticultural’ down the left hand side and ‘society’ down the right hand side. There are flowers and butterflies around the central text.

National Paralympic Heritage Trust interactive game
The full layout of an interactive game made from embellished and embroidered squares, that take the player through a journey of the barriers that disabled paralympians may face, alongside other interesting information related to the Paralympics.

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