In the summer of 2013 she created a series designs inspired by Walking Wiltshire’s Eight White Horses. These became the basis for a new range of products – silk scarves, silk pocket squares and greetings cards, each accompanied by a piece of text.
For the Gravity Fields Festival in 2014, Ali worked with walkers and local artists to design six giant Isaac Newton themed flags using their walking experience as inspiration. Ali was in residence at the Grantham Museum to create the silk flags which along with six painted illustrations were then displayed along the walking routes and later paraded into the festival finale in the town centre.
Ali was also commissioned in 2014 to create text and visual elements for a five year management plan for the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty with digital artist Richard White. Ali and Richard worked together running workshops with local people in which thoughts, stories, sounds, images and other artefacts were gathered and the material generated was collated into illustrations and text for use in the management plan.
Ali’s work was also exhibited in the Museum in The Park in Stroud after she and Mike Johnston were commissioned to create a response for The Art of Walking – A Walking the Land exhibition that explores the paths between walking and creativity. Their walk in which they traced the journey of Laurie Lee from the French border town Ceret to the Catalonian town Aguillana inspired their work, Crossing Borders, a narrative in seven parts expressed through silk hangings, moving image and audio.
If you are interested in finding out more about Ali’s work please email ali@alipretty.co.uk
