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Firmdale & Jo Waterhouse
Project Details
PARTNER: Firmdale Hotels
PROJECT: Series of 12 Collages
DATE: October 2017
Kit Kemp, Interior Designer and Firmdale Co-director, first saw Jo Waterhouse’s work at The New Craftsmen’s Animal, Vegetable, Mineral exhibition in the summer of 2017. Enamoured by these mythical interpretations of old British folk tales, she commissioned a new set of 12 collages, depicting folk stories from across the British Isles.
Created over 12 weeks, these characterful illustrations were composed of many materials, patterns and hand-painted papers, building layer upon layer of texture, depth and narrative.




The resulting commission explores the rich tapestry of characters at play in folk tales. Each piece captures the back and forth between the transcendental nature of the costumes with the human fallibility of the wearer.
I am always playing with a collage of colour, pattern and texture, with handcrafted details such as appliqué and needlepoint. I love details that give the sense of the hand of the person who made the stitches in a cushion or carved the curves of a table leg. It makes an interior feel more human, and these pieces help to tell a story.
Interior Designer & Firmdale Hotels Co-director
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