A catch up with Sarah Morpeth - Book & Paper Artist

+ Information on August workshops

Jul 26, 2024

Hello and happy Friday! I am sending this a couple of days early so you get workshop information in time…

This is the eighth in a series of spotlight articles featuring our paid members. You can read our previous one here. It has been such a brilliant experience opening up my inbox to creatives working across Northumberland and beyond! I have already met some wonderful people and it has been a pleasure hearing their stories and learning more about the work they are doing here in our small corner of the world. We hope you enjoy reading them too.

This week I am catching up with Sarah Morpeth, who lives and works in the heart of the Northumberland National Park. Sarah tells us a bit about her work/background and exciting information on workshops she is running in August.

Tell us a bit about your work

I am an artist living and working in the heart of the Northumberland National Park and my practice has for fifteen years focussed on book arts and work in cut paper. I am a little bit obsessed with paper, and the magical possibilities of transforming a flat sheet, with some folding and cutting, into something three-dimensional and amazing.

Text threads its way through my art, with half-remembered lines of songs and poems appearing and often shaping the form of the piece. I'm inspired too by where I live; the wildlife that surrounds me in the gardens, verges and fields around my home finds its place at the heart of my work.

I have loved books all my life; not just reading them but everything about them as objects - their smell and feel. I am that weird customer in a second-hand bookshop who is sniffing the pages...! I've always thought that books, like the Tardis, are bigger on the inside - that they contain worlds, and I am trying to embody that feeling in the books that I make, which explode beyond the confines of their covers and where the content shapes their form.

What is your background?

I have exhibited widely at Galleries and Artist Book Fairs throughout the UK, including at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, An Tobar on Mull, the Biscuit Factory in Newcastle, the Bluecoat in Liverpool, the Flow and Curwen Galleries in London and the RBSA in Birmingham.

My work is held in Artist’s Book Collections at MMU, the Tate, London, UWE, University of Northampton, Baltic Gallery, and the Yale Collection of British Art. It's also been featured in Coast Magazine, Country Living, Living North, Gardens Illustrated and in publications including In Praise of Beautiful Books’, ‘Of Green Leaf, Bird and Flower’, ‘Paperworks’ and 'Making & Drawing'.

My background is pretty varied; from a degree in Classics, followed by nearly a decade as a lawyer in London but the pull of doing something more creative became impossible to resist! I returned home to the North East to do an Art Foundation course and then an Embroidery Degree which led me into making books and cutting paper.

Workshops coming up

I am incredibly lucky to have a wonderful converted barn as my workspace, as well as to have been given a generous grant recently from the Ray Wind Funds CIC Community Benefit Fund. The Fund was established by energy company Vattenfall for the benefit of the communities hosting the Ray Windfarm and it's amazing to have had that support with making improvements and buying equipment so I can start running workshops again.

My studio is a lovely light-filled space, which is open to the rafters, providing the perfect creative haven in a beautiful setting on the edge of the picturesque village of Elsdon.

I am starting with a Beginner's workshop in Papercutting on the 4th August. It will cover basic scalpel cutting techniques, and starting with simple designs I'll explain how to start designing for papercuts and provide plenty of inspiration for creating and displaying them.

On 24th August I'm running an Introduction to Book Arts, where we'll make a range of simple folded and stitched book structures. There'll be fun with concertinas and a few classic bookbinding techniques, as well as lots of examples of quirky artist's books from my collection for inspiration.

I'll be running workshops in the autumn too so do keep an eye out in my website, where there's more information and you can book online. You can also sign up for my newsletter -

Snippets from the Studio

- where you can find out first about what's coming up, as well as occasional papercutting tips and free templates for subscribers. You'll find me at www.sarahmorpeth.com

Open Studio

Elsdon Fete is taking place as usual on the August bank holiday Monday (26th August) and I'll be turning the studio into a gallery and opening to visitors for the day. You can explore my workspace and chat about all things book and paper art. It's a great opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at an artist's process and learn a bit more about how my book structures are made and where the inspiration comes from.