Helen Pailing

Multimedia sculptor | North Shields, United Kingdom

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Helen Pailing

Making matter matter

Helen uses leftover materials from other making processes to craft her own sculptures
She reimagines a purpose or use for these materials
Her work is held in permanent collections in the UK

Helen Pailing is a multidisciplinary creative artisan whose work celebrates the tactile, experimental, and playful possibilities of materials. Completing a PhD in Recrafting Waste, Helen explores haptic knowledge and the value inherent in every scrap, challenging the notion of what is waste. Her approach is rooted in formative childhood experiences with her family who fostered a deep appreciation for craftsmanship and materiality. Trained in textiles, Helen has expanded her skills to include spinning, weaving, cordage making, and, most recently, glass lampworking. Her work is a collaboration between maker and matter. Helen’s large scale site-specific works reconfigure, reassemble and re-organise matter in spaces, in direct response to the location.

Interview

©Rachel Deakin

Can you describe your connection with materials?: I let the materials lead the process of making, paying attention to their form, materiality and history. In this sense, I work in collaboration with the materials or as if I am in conversation with them. In a way, I am asking how they want to be manipulated or reassembled.
How did you learn the craft techniques you use?: I studied for a BA Hons Embroidery and that textile training has certainly underpinned how I manipulate and ‘stitch’ objects together. Since my degree, I have picked up various techniques. Most recently, I have used lampworking in my practice, despite it being a glass technique.
In your installation work, how do you respond to place?: Each space is different and requires a bespoke approach. Most recently, in the public artwork called Connection, set in Middlesbrough train station, I responded to the industrial heritage of the city and the station’s fundamental role in bringing people together.
What is special about waste materials?: For me, the bits that are left behind during the making process intrigue me. This is especially the case when the mark of the maker is present, for example in my lampworking offcuts. I am drawn to the potential of materials viewed as ‘waste’.

Helen Pailing is an expert artisan: she began her career in 2001