Not every couple can work together but husband and wife team, Liz and Neil Scobie, seem to have found the secret. Combining his talents with wood and hers with textiles they’ve built a thriving business based on their own picturesque property, allowing Liz to travel near and far to share her skills with others.

Based in a rural setting just 20 minutes north of Coffs Harbour, Liz and Neil’s home is also the base for their two separate studios which make up Bucca Creek Wood & Textiles. Liz trained as a textile and design teacher in the early 1970s before retiring from full time work in 1980 to raise her children. During that period she began working more earnestly on her textile art, focussing particularly on creative machine embroidery.

In the early 90s, in what she thought was a one-off, Liz decorated a series of painted timber platters that had been turned by Neil. They were enormously successful and in the years that followed the duo collaborated on many pieces for special exhibitions and produced a range of painted platters, bowls and screens which have sold in galleries throughout Australia and the USA.

Today Liz has managed to return the focus to her textiles and has become a sought after teacher as well, leading classes both at her home base and beyond. “Students come to us from all over Australia and the only promotion we have is word of mouth,” she says. “Neil runs classes too and sometimes couples will come and one will do textiles with me and the other will do wood with Neil. Recently we have devised combined workshops where one can go off and make the lamp base and the other can be with me and make the shade, for instance.” She also teaches gifted and talented workshops in schools.

The Scobies are interesting pair, having taken the daring step of completely opting out of paid employment while their children were still at school with the aim of making a living from their artwork. Neil’s work involves both creative woodturning, plus carving, designing and making custom made furniture for private clients and select galleries. Liz continues to work on collaborative pieces with Neil, incorporating fibre with timber in their floor screens and still does the decorative paint work.

Neil is also a professional teacher having trainied as an Industrial Arts Teacher in the early 1970 s, then teaching in NSW high schools for 20 years. “We both think that initial grounding has helped us enormously in our subsequent ventures,” says Liz. “We always say it taught us how to learn. We’ve been able to acquire new skills as we’ve needed them.”

By teaching 13-year-olds to 76-year-olds, Liz says she is constantly inspired. “A Year 8 child is very creative and enthusiastic but has no skills. An older woman might have a lot of skills but may have grown inhibited. They require very different approaches. I am constantly learning from the students. Honestly, I would be very surprised to come out of a workshop without picking up a new skill somehow,” she adds.

Inspired by the nature that surrounds her plus the textile arts of traditional cultures - the colour, the texture, the embellishment - Liz is a prolific photographer, often taking extreme close-ups of textures she will later try and interpret in her work through fabric and stitching. “I am the one photographing the bark on the ground while out walking,” she says.

“Currently I love merging paintwork with textiles. I am applying much that I have learned from painting on wood to my work. For instance, the Heritage House class I will run at Be Creative By The Sea (see below) this year is done on stretched canvas. The background is painted with a texture medium then painted with paint. The houses are made with raw edge appliqué and machine embroidered."

Away from her teaching, Liz’s personal work mirrors this same development. “Most paint finishes you use on traditional mediums can be used on textiles,” says Liz. “You probably wouldn’t call them traditional quilts, the ones I do. They’re probably more suited to galleries than quilt shows.”

Like her students whom she finds are more and more strapped for time, Liz too is looking for more opportunities to carve out “time to play” as she calls it, where she can renew her own creative juices. Not content to just be the tutor, she tries to attend at least one workshop herself a year. In 2008 she studied under Gloria Loughman (see www.glorialoughman.com [glorialoughman.com]) which, she says, was perfect because it took her right out of her comfort zone. “Gloria is so neat and precise compared to me,” says Liz. “She’s a great teacher and a lovely woman. I think you need to keep studying under other people to develop as a teacher.”

Our creative teacher profile
Liz Scobie

Her specialties
Creative machine embroidery
Painted & decorative finishes

Where she teaches
Her own studio at Bucca Creek Wood & Textiles and around Australia

Find her at
www.neilandlizscobie.com [neilandlizscobie.com]
Email: info@neilandlizscobie.com

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