Karen gives traditional art form a high-tech twist (From Craven Herald)

Karen gives traditional art form a high-tech twist

9:14am Saturday 2nd August 2008 in Dales Folk By John Sheard

Technology and I don't mix. My bank has just sent me a device to stop people taking cash out of my account and it is 100 per cent effective - it won't let me make any withdrawals either. But I at least know what it is, even if I can't make it do what it is supposed to do.

I mention this by way of an apology - getting my retaliation in first, so to speak - because I have just had an intriguing lesson in technology, ancient and modern, but I doubt if I can explain it with any degree of lucidity.

After all, what is a PDA (apparently the term will be familiar to anyone under the age of 15)? And has anyone out there under the age of 80 ever heard of stobby, stoody, hookie or peg-rule?

I was introduced to these mysteries by a very busy lady with such a welter of interests that she left me feeling lazy.

Karen Griffiths is a doctor of archaeology who doesn't use her title, a museum expert, a communications manager with the Yorkshire Dales National Park, a teacher of traditional rug making and a gardener who makes me feel even lazier because she has kept her allotment in tip-top condition all this wet and windy summer because, unlike me, she works through the rain.

She is also an artist in the singular craft of rag work, which means creating beautiful but useful artefacts out of what many people would consider to be junk. Instead of throwing old jumpers and blankets away, she recycles them to make handbags, shopping bags, and stunningly original brooches.

She even makes scarves out of recycled T-shirts which seems to me a very good idea indeed, seeing the offensive and often downright pornographic words and images some people have printed on such garments these days.

But let's go back to those questions in my third paragraph. A PDA, Karen explained, is one of those hand-held computers, with or without a mobile phone, which every trendy young executive must have these days.

She has one - although she couldn't tell me what PDA stands for - because she has to keep track of such a busy schedule. And she produced it from a very chic-looking holder which she made herself - out of recycled textiles, of course.

This PDA "wallet" - if that is its proper name - can be fashioned with one of the stobbies etc etc which are ancient knots used by former generations back in times when it was a crime to throw anything away.

They were used, mainly, to make rag rugs or bedroom quilts - but Karen has adopted them to create all sorts of high fashion items for today's trend-conscious women: after all, who could resist a stobby-stitched PDA wallet?

We met in the Gallery Upstairs, a communal attic space rented by a group of artists above the Harlequin Centre just off Grassington Square, where Karen displays some of her artwork.

This is a hectic time, because she is preparing her exhibits for the Art in the Pen "visual arts fair" to be held at Skipton Auction Mart on Saturday and Sunday, August 16 and 17.

I asked her how she could find the time for ragwork considering all her other commitments, both business and leisure. She shrugged and offered: "It must be that old Protestant work ethic. I would go insane if I weren't busy." And what a busy life she has led...

She was born into a family of farmers and drapers in the Shropshire/Welsh Marches in 1959, but was moved as a child to Cumbria when her teacher father took a job there. It was the first of many moves, which took her to school in Essex and university courses at Durham and Newcastle, where she took her doctorate in archaeology.

This led to a job working as an artefacts expert on Hadrian's Wall, then another post-graduate course at Leicester in museum studies, which led to work in museums at Northampton.

But her interest in ragwork was growing, so she studied art and design at Loughborough and is even now doing a part-time MA course at the University of Cumbria.

She came to the Dales 11 years ago as a communications specialist to the national park, tasked with describing the work the park does in fields like archaeology, geology, conservation in words that ordinary people can understand - "The more the people understand what we do the greater care they will take of the park."

She settled in Skipton with her two labradors and, part-time, teaches ragwork at Malham. This is a woman with a deep understanding of the past who relishes the challenges and opportunities every modern day brings.

Her ragwork creations incorporate the old - the techniques she uses - and the new, the designs she creates for modern fashion. They will be on show at Skipton Mart and they are well worth a look.

She might even explain the difference between her stobbies and her peg-rules.