Chrissie Westgate
Chrissie is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, a member of the
London Salon and an international award-winning photographer. She lives
close to the water’s edge on Mersea Island and documents the
everchanging landscape around her. Chrissie’s images of local scenery and
sailing events can be found in many magazines and are also displayed in
local galleries. Each year she produces a stunning Mersea Island calendar
that has become popular around the world. In 2021 she published a
beautiful hard back book titled ‘Whispering Shores’ about living on Mersea
Island.
Chrissie has had her images displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum,
the Mall Gallery, the Menier Gallery, the Royal Albert Hall, the Greenwich
Museum, Firstsite Gallery in Colchester and Liverpool Street Station.
Vinny Stapley
After studying printed textiles at Middlesex University, Vinny went on to work as a textile designer for the fashion industry and then as a teacher. As an artist she has worked on Community Arts projects, Public Art commissions and exhibited in galleries in London and East Anglia, including the V&A as part of the ‘Art of Stitch’ event. The processes she uses combine screen-print, machine embroidery, photoshop and digital print, with other techniques experimentally to produce mixed-media pieces in a variety of formats, from sculptural forms, to panels and glass. Her current body of work, ‘Mersea Florilegeum’ is focused on exploring the flora of the Saltmarshes that surround her Mersea Island home. She is a featured artist on TextileArtist.org’s Stitch Club and is a member of the ‘East’ textile group.
