Catherina Petit-van Hoey
Textile/Mixed Media Artist | Speaker | Worskshop Facilitator
Events
July 2022
Episode 5 | Riding the Grief Coaster
August 2022
Episode 6 | How to Get Off the Grief Coaster
Episode 7 | The Only Constant is Change
Meet Catherina
Catherina is a Dutch textile/mixed media artist, who temporarily lives in Valencia, Spain, since April 2019.
Her home however is based in the UK, where she has lived since 1994 and where she has been actively engaged in various art groups, regularly exhibiting her work and occasionally giving talks and workshops.
Mental Health, the power of meditation and the therapeutic effects of practising creative arts are of great importance to her.
Catherina is a retired nurse, carer and craft-group coordinator for people with mental health problems and has experienced some mental health challenges herself at various times throughout her life.
In her younger years, struggling with life in general and as a nurse depending on alcohol, she turned her life around in 1983 when she embarked on a spiritual journey of a life-time and embraced a healthier lifestyle – becoming vegetarian, abstaining from alcohol and drugs and practising meditation on a daily basis ever since.
Catherina is happily married to a British man, who shares the same values and lifestyle. Whilst raising a family and working as a carer Catherina undertook various studies in the creative arts and eventually gave up her work in the health service. With full support of her husband she now dedicates most of her time to her art.
Catherina’s outlook on life is quite philosophical, which is often expressed in her work through the use of symbolic ideas and imagery, supported with text.
She likes to work in a wide variety of fibre art techniques, preferring to employ methods which best suit a particular concept or idea she wants to bring across. Although she recognises the value of specialisation, she prefers to always keep her “options open”.
For more details of what inspires Catherina’s work, visit the website of the author and poet, Leslie Tate who interviewed Catherina in 2015 under the title ‘Can Art Heal Life?’ Click here to read the interview.
Works and stories
The Butterfly Effect
The Butterfly Effect by Catherina Petit-van Hoey I created 2 hoops for the project Emerging One Year On, organised by Ascend Charity. The large hoop presents Our Broken World, repaired with stitch and gold, like Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken...
Lockdown
Lockdown by Catherina Petit-van Hoey April 2020 This work was created following an on-line Community Stitch Challenge directed by Cas Holmes for TextileArtist.org We are living on the 9th floor in an apartment in Valencia, Spain. This is the 3rd week we are in...
Self Isolation
Self Isolation by Catherina Petit van Hooey April 2020 Being a textile artist, I often have several stitch works on the go. Some were started but, for whatever reason, never got finished. So when I had to choose what to bring over from our house in the UK, when we...
Presentation
In May 2012 personal tragedy struck when Catherina’s youngest daughter (an art student) suddenly died at the age of 22, from a form of sepsis.
After organising a most creative DIY funeral/life celebration with family and friends, Catherina came close to giving up practising art.
However, encouraged by fellow artists, she took on several art projects and found that her art and creativity helped her enormously in the grieving process.
She hopes that her story will inspire other people who are going through similar life experiences.