Artist Bio
Lou Turnbull is a City & Guilds trained multi-disciplinary artist and Forest School Leader with a background in Earth Science.. Her practice in textiles, natural colour, wild arts and crafting move in cyclical, intuitive and reciprocal approaches with nature. She uses foraged, found and home grown plants and materials to make art with dyes, inks, pigments and fibres. These inspire her symbolic pieces that express her devotion to Earth and our lost relationship with the land whilst supporting her mental and emotional wellbeing.
Lou is passionate about sharing her practices for with others which centre around biophilia and a Forest School approach to learning. The environmental crisis drives her to work sustainably and towards regenerative practices as part of a global collective of growing awareness and creative solutions. Lou's approach is holistic, slow, embodied and sensory, creating gratitude, awareness and relationship with our more than human world. Her practise has shifted how she experiences life which has gifted empowerment, agency and self-sufficiency.
Curriculum Vitae
Qualifications
2025 : Working towards Level 3 Forest School Leadership
2024: Level 3 ICT Outdoor First Aid
2024: Women's Circle Leader Training, Wildways
2023: Year One Level 4 FdA Textiles, Bradford College of Art (Distinction)
2022: Level 3 City & Guilds in Design & Craft (Embroidery)
1998: MSc Earth Observation Science, UCL & Imperial College London
1996: BSc (Hons) Environmental Geology, University of Hertfordshire (First Class)
Facilitation & Community
2024 - : Creative Facilitator at WildWays, FreshAir& Studio and The Acorn Retreat, North Yorkshire
2024 : Outdoor Facilitator - Woodland Wellness for Women - Earth festival and wild craft gatherings
2024 - : Crimple Valley Steering Group - Protecting our local landscape and new strategies
2020 - 2023: Artizan International, creative volunteer and facilitator
2007 - 2019: Community volunteer, fundraising co-ordinator, playgroup craft leader
Educational Courses
May 2025: Trysting Trees with Hawthorn, Old Mill Arts
Jan 2025: Screen printing with natural dyes, Ceres Studio London
2024 - 2025: Natural Colour Making for Artists, a year-long programme with Plants & Colour
2024 - 2025: Plants & Colour year-long study group with Earth Pigment artist Annie Hogg
2024: Growing Slow Textiles, a nine month journey from seed to cloth with heritage plants flax and woad, The Wild Dyery
July 2024: New Relationships with Colour, Lucila Kenny natural dye artist
March 2024: Natural dyeing deep dive, Jaqui Simmons, Slow Lane Studio
2023 - : Ongoing Plants & Colour workshops and talks in natural dyeing, growing dye plants, eco-printing, botanical inks, charcoals, dyeing paper, nettle fibre & pre-historic textiles and mushroom colour.
2023 - 2024: Grail Priestess, Tara Brading women's educator and storyteller. A six month deep exploration and shamanic journeying into ancient English ancestry, grail mythologies, elemental medicine and our colonial and patriachal inheritance.
2022 - 2023: Hagitude, Dr Sharon Blackie author and psychologist. A year-long programme in story, dreamwork and archetypal psychology on menarchy and menopause.
Work History
2019 - Present: Textile artist, creative and outdoor facilitator
2014 - 2017: The Harrogate Seamstress, sole trader in soft furnishings
2001 - 2005: Senior Consultant, Mouchel. Geographical Information Systems, mapping, 3D and environmental analysis.
2001: Earth Observation Technician, Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick. Flood mapping and environmental image processing.
1996 - 1997: Technical Sales Executive. Environmental Systems Research Institute.
Memberships
2025 - : Pigments Revealed International
2025 - : Land Art Agency
2024 - : The York Guild of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers
2023 - : The Resurgence Trust
2019 - : Harrogate Creative Stitchers, Committee Member
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