Between 1973 and 1993 Diana England spent a major part of her career working with other artists in a company that pioneered the vision, philosophy and funding criteria for community arts. The manner in which projects were undertaken in their support and development for the community alongside artistic working practice has been her speciality.

In 1984 she became the Director for Education for Free Form Arts Trust and associate director of the Trust, until 1993 representing the company with NAEA (National Association for Education in the Arts) and in discussion with the then, Arts Council Education department . Trained in the visual arts painting, sculpture and printmaking she worked in mixed media with the company creating access to the arts through street theatre, film making and mobile workshops in Liverpool, Manchester, Leith, and London.

During the 1980’s she specialised in educational environmental improvement projects on estates and in schools. ‘A Pride in Hackney Schools’ was a three year playground programme involving 7 schools and five visual artists. Team working has been a hallmark of the artist induction and training programmes at Free form, and this was part of the groundwork for the future development of graduate programmes.

Diana progressed her work with the company supervising specialist artists on the public art hoarding projects funded by the private sector, where these programmes served to support the charitable work of the trust .This ‘design to public art’ process informed her final programme of a permanent public art piece, The Soho Mural in Berwick Street.
At 13.4 metres high it depicted the life and time of Soho, all the famous artist, public figures and artisans from William Blake, Karl Marx, Josiah Wedgwood, David Garrick to Ronnie Scott and Jessie Mathews and Dylan Thomas. A ceramic map shows all the specialist crafts and historic places that grew at the gate to the city. The designs were undertaken by the public art hoardings director and his team. Diana directed the project for the company, working with the community, researchers, designers, ceramicists, painters, sculptors, clock makers, installation artists and property management group over two years. This project set the seeds for the seven-year Textile Project that became the ‘Stitches in Time’, Tapestry for the Millennium. She saw small artist and crafts workshops that had been in existence since Huguenot times in Soho, vanish in the two years of the project there, due to the Land Class Use Orders Act, brought before parliament in 1991 and introduced by 1993. It reclassified studio and small workshops as a single category, commercial property.

‘Stitches in Time’ started in an artist’s studio in the old Spitalfield’s Market in 1993, and progressed to include over 3000 people living in Tower Hamlets, in partnership with 47 groups and working with 34 artists to create a cultural history of the Borough from the Romans to the present, using textiles.

It was devised as a diverse and anti racist project that could bring different cultures and people of all ages together, simply by sewing and exploring textiles through printing and painting, to create a common history .Diana raised funds through Bethnal Green City Challenge, and other funding bodies and Trusts, worked free lance to buy equipment and went back to main stream teaching after 25 years in 1996, to support the ongoing programme.

Having graduated from Bristol, in Fine Art and then a Chelsea postgraduate MA in printmaking, she completed a teaching qualification. Diana both set up a print department in a secondary school in Newham and taught in schools in Islington and Hackney before joining Free Form.

The Tapestry project combined training artists in community arts, development programmes in the community and curriculum projects in schools and colleges. It was a voyage of discovery in working as a single community Artist, creating partnership working, based upon a personal obsession, of how people and pattern travel across continents, and endeavouring to make that relevant in a contemporary society.

The 50 piece textile Public Art Frieze, each piece is 10 foot by 8 foot, was displayed at 6 venues throughout the Millennium year as part of the Tower Hamlets Millennium celebrations and had 30 different sponsors. During 1999 a voluntary organisation was formed to support the final Millennium programme when all 50 pieces were exhibited, in Bethnal Green, and over 5000 people saw the final outcome.

The workshop moved from Brick Lane in 2000 to the old Limehouse Town Hall. A charity, ‘Stitches in Time’, was established by 2002 to curate the collection and run community arts education and development programmes, with Diana as the Director. ‘Stitches in Time’ has created over 60 site specific textiles as part of community and education programmes from 2000 to 2005.

‘Stitches in Time’ is a consortium member of the Limehouse Town Hall and is assisting in restoring and renovating the 125 year old building. This will be a permanent home and educational resource for the tapestry. It also will provide studio and small work space in the cultural and craft sector. ‘Stitches in Time’ runs a women’s enterprise room and printing studio from its base and works across Tower Hamlets as well as linking groups to those in other parts of London via a partnership programme with the Royal Historic Palaces. It runs design to product programmes, garment making and educational programmes accessing all members of a diverse community to its projects through special language programmes and women’s support programmes with community partners.

Fundraising is a huge task in order to increase the capacity of the organisation. ‘Stitches in Time’ is launching Fabricworks that will employ community makers as a production partnership with artists commissions, as a way of supporting the Women’s Enterprise Room. It will publicise this at its 5th Heritage Lottery funded programme, ‘At Work’, at St Paul’s Church Bow Common shown on the website: www.stitchesintime.org.uk