Sally Light is the textile artist and maker behind Bodkin Beak. She has a degree in Creative writing and a rich experience of working in textile trades.

Since being awarded a Somerset Art Works Creative Pathways Bursary in 2023, she has been developing her textile practice, drawing on her personal memories of working as a mender at Fox Brothers’ mill.

‘At the end of each shift, after spending hours touching cloth, smoothing, feeling for knots or badly spun yarn, pulling out bits of straw caught up in spun fibres, my palms used to tingle. It was as though, even when resting, my hands were alert, it felt like a gift.’

With sustainability in mind, and a compulsion to create from the waste cloth and yarns she had access to through her previous paid employment (to not waste any of that experience but own it creatively) Sally has rediscovered her love for rag rug making. She relishes using her hands to create new work from materials that were bound for shoddy mills or landfill.