Thunderbug Designs (aka Toni Hibberd)

Do you concentrate on one medium, or do you work in several?

I mainly work in two media: polymer clay and woven textile.  Each gives me something different, but both feed into a guiding principle stated by William Morris, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”.  The polymer clay gives me immediacy, easy access to colour experimentation, and the ability to create in three dimensions.  The weaving is a much slower, more meditative process, and satisfies my need to make useful things that are also beautiful.  As I often suffer with repetitive strain injury, it also helps that I have two very different processes to swap between, when I need to rest from one of them.  For my Desire Paths exhibition, I am taking an opportunity to explore different techniques and materials than I would normally weave with, focusing on meaning and intention, rather than production and practicality.

Tell me about your workspace.

Our guest bedroom was sacrificed to create my weave studio which, like much of my life, is multipurpose practicality, general storage, and all over semi-organised chaos.  What used to be my library shelving has been slowly repurposed over the years to hold as much yarn and sundry weaving and art supplies as possible, with stacks of boxes of interesting and beautiful yarns and fibres and fabrics wherever they will fit in the corners.  My loom nestles in the middle of this explosion as a calm island of organised creation.  Sadly there is no room for a dedicated sewing area, so all fabric finishing and mounting happens at the kitchen table.  Wherever I am working, though, you can guarantee that my cat Henriette will be harassing me for treats and cuddles.

What inspires you?

I have very little consistent inspiration, so I find this question difficult to answer – somewhat akin to when authors are asked “So where do you get your ideas from?”  I often tell people that though I dress like a crow (90% of my wardrobe is black), on the inside, I’m rainbow chaos.  My creative process is often semi subconscious, and tends to consist of a nugget here, a fragment there, a picture I liked on the internet, and a throwaway remark by a friend, all somehow meeting in a little backwater of my brain, and combining in a way even I can’t usually predict. Add into that a very low boredom threshold, and you have a recipe for lots of ideas and projects all spinning around in my brain at once.  If there are no project deadlines involved, I will often go for whichever idea seems the most fun or interesting at that moment, regardless of how long it’s been on my “to do” list. Which is why I enjoy commissions, because I am apparently very bad at setting parameters for myself!

Do you have a favourite piece in your Little Gallery exhibition?

I can’t really answer this question with any certainty.  Because I love what I do, my favourites change like the tides, often depending on the time of day, or year, and how many technical issues I dealt with in its creation.

How did you start doing what you do?

Aged almost forty, after a lifetime of pursuing various yarn and fibre crafts, I discovered that I was able (allowed, even!) to study Textile Design at university.  Somehow the thought had never previously crossed my mind.  The moment I walked into the weave studio, I was both lost and found.  By the time I graduated, I wanted nothing more than to design, manufacture and sell my handwoven work.  The polymer clay came about because I was not allowed plasticene as a (very messy) child.  One day, I realised that I was an adult, with adult money, and I could do what I liked.  I bought myself a starter kit and then, a month into my explorations, the covid lockdown began.  Suddenly I had all this free time, and a new medium (with thousands of hours of online tutorials) to explore. Nine months later, I had taught myself how to make jewellery, and well enough that I was able to sell my work.

Do you work on your creative business full time, or do you have another job as well?

After I graduated in 2019, my plan was to take a break, and then work on product development with a view to selling my work at craft markets when the season began in the spring of 2020.  Obviously that plan was slightly interrupted by the global pandemic, but during those uncertain lockdown days, I not only spent more time on product development, but I was also able to develop my practice with polymer clay.  Since then, I have been a full time self-employed creative.

If you have spare time, what do you do with it?

I am one of those people that doesn’t feel right if I’m not creating in some way, so I’ve always, always needed a creative outlet.  I have had myriad creative hobbies over my lifetime, but now that creativity is my actual job, my leaky well can finally stay mostly full.  Unfortunately, even I can’t make things 24/7, so to give my brain a rest, I rarely do anything creative in my spare time.  Instead I can generally either be found reading via the Kindle app on my phone, or scrolling through all the joy, silliness, creativity, and cultural commentary I can find on social media.

What’s next for you?

My future plans are rarely concrete, but after the Desire Paths exhibition, I’ll be straight back to the loom to refill my more practical woven stock.  I’m also working on developing the more sculptural aspects of my polymer clay practice, and will continue to ponder ways to combine my two practices into something engaging, beautiful, and useful.  Or, at least, interesting.