By JO-MARIE BROWN
When Jo Dixey tells people she is a professional embroiderer, she gets a lot of sideways glances.
Some people expect her to wear pretty dresses and have long hair, she says. Others assume, before she visits them, that she will be a senior citizen.
But this English-born 29-year-old from rural Wellsford, north of Auckland, leads a unique life travelling up and down the country teaching others about the finer points of "stitching".
Older women are her main pupils. They gather in places as varied as church halls and pubs for their lessons. And although she has never taught a man, she is confident male embroiderers do exist.
"They do it at home but they don't admit it to anybody," she laughs.
There are over 3000 members of the Association of New Zealand Embroiderers Guilds and 61 regional guilds scattered about the country, so her technical expertise is in demand.
Most Fridays she loads up her Mazda 323 with materials and drives to far-flung towns and settlements from Doubtless Bay in the north to Invercargill in the south to hold two-day workshops.
Word of mouth means private groups of women who are not guild members also phone requesting classes.
She doesn't generally teach beginners, but her students do have a mixture of abilities.
"Every class is run really differently because when you get there you have to stand up and work out the skill level and gear it to that."
Guilds can request that a certain technique be taught, and she often brings a design with her for the women to reproduce.
"But with the more advanced classes, they actually design their own or bring ideas with them and I talk them through what they're doing."
Jo Dixey has worked as a full-time embroiderer for 11 years. She migrated to New Zealand in 2000 and her first solo exhibition is showing now at the Rotorua Museum of Art and History.
She attributes her unusual occupation to having grown up in a small village called Bulmer, on the Essex-Suffolk border, where many women, including her mother, loved quilting and patchwork.
"Fabric was always around at home so it was there to be played with like anything else, really," she explains.
At 18, she spotted a stand advertising the Royal School of Needlework while on an annual family trip to a knitting and stitching show in London.
The school's three-year course is the best training available anywhere in the world in traditional embroidery techniques. Today you can't tell by looking at Jo Dixey's seamless pieces where one stitch finishes and the next starts.
"People hate me for that, but it's the training. I've been doing this for 11 years, so if you could see my stitches I'd be a bit worried actually."
Between taking classes around the country, she recently stitched Auckland University's eight new graduation banners and restored an altar frontalfor a church in Christchurch.
"I've always been quite conscious that I've got to make it pay. I can't just be an artist," she says.
As a result, she has none of her own exquisite work adorning the walls of her home - much to the disappointment of her husband, Kit.
But she says that if she became attached to her pieces she would be unable to sell them.
The silk shading and metal thread techniques that she mainly uses, where the colours appear to effortlessly blend into one another, are quite different from embroidery such as cross-stitch which most New Zealanders are familiar with.
"Some people love the discipline of having to count threads because it's safe ... Whereas if you do it freehand you don't know it's wrong until you've done it."
Ideas are usually sketched on paper first before being drawn on to a calico surface. Paint and melted pastels often form a backdrop for her work before the delicate stitching and beading is applied over the top.
Jo Dixey, who is expecting her first child next month, works from a small studio at home and admits being addicted to embroidery. She even takes it away on holiday.
She would love to see the craft become more mainstream, and especially to see more young people involved.
"It's not something you have to wait to do, you can do it in your 20s."
And you can do it anywhere.
Embroiderer extraordinary
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