Biography
Growing up in Morocco, Nora Boland’s fascination with colourful textiles began at an early age. Nora recollects daily market trips, where she helped her mother to buy “flamboyant, silky fabrics for making kaftans”. Having begun her career in interior design, Nora decided to pursue her passion for textiles and returned to university to study Textiles Design, graduating from the University College For Creative Arts in Farnham in 2007. In 2006, Nora was awarded the Colour Prize by The Dyers’ Association, and in 2007, Nora’s work was short listed for a prestigious Textprint Award.
Nora’s strength is her innate sensitivity for colour and scale which allows her to juxtapose very unusual tones of colour to create subtle and sophisticated textiles. This she achieves by using a variety of yarns; worsted wool Merino, silk, cashmere, and mercerized cotton, stainless steel, silver and gold yarn. Also she is not afraid to mix unconventional yarns together to tell her story.
Using and exploring colour is a natural and instinctive thing for Nora to do and to quote her:
"Touching, feeling and now creating beautiful cloth makes me happy and enthusiastic.
My life is worth living just to do that."
Nora currently produces hand-woven textiles, which she crafts into scarves and wrist cuffs.