Twelve huge panels, three years’ work, miles of thread, eight million stitches! Exhibition retelling the creation story by textile artist Jacqui Parkinson

‘Threads through Creation’ is a spectacular sequence of twelve huge textile panels. It’s an exuberant retelling of the creation story in the book of Genesis, a retelling which many visitors will find both moving and breathtaking.

Viewers are treated to a wonderful variety of colours, shapes, patterns – and of course lots of creatures!

The exhibition is one of the largest textile projects by a single artist, ever. It has taken Jacqui nearly three years.

Threads through Creation is on display from Saturday 20 July to Monday 26 August. 

Visiting times are 9am - 5pm Monday - Saturday and 12pm - 2.30pm and 4pm - 5pm on Sundays.

Jacqui Parkinson

Jacqui Parkinson is a textile artist, using fabric and stitching to produce spectacular panels. Her principal interest is in bringing the message of God’s love through her artwork, providing information, affirmation, questions, encouragement, and pleasure - and sometimes bringing a little bit of fun as well as serious theology.

Jacqui was born in Manchester and lived in London for many years, where she taught drama and then ran an arts centre. Discovering a love for stitching at a textile workshop changed her life: she went on to take a degree in Embroidered Textiles and turn to textile art as a career.

From 2004 to 2011 she was commissioned to stitch first one, and then a series of eleven small exhibitions to tour cathedrals for The Deo Gloria Trust. These exhibitions have been touring ever since and have been on show in most of the cathedrals of England.

Jacqui moved to Devon in 2009, and soon began to work on a larger scale. In 2014 she started what is reckoned to be the largest textile project by a single artist, ever – ‘Threads through Revelation.’ This re-imagined the last book in the Bible, in fourteen huge panels. It toured 14 cathedrals between 2016 and 2018 and was seen by more than 500,000 visitors.

Since then, she has been working on ‘Threads through Creation’, which has taken three years to produce. This exhibition is touring twenty cathedrals and great churches from 2021 to 2024.

She is currently working on third huge project which will probably create the largest textile art project for 600 years, with a premiere at Liverpool Cathedral in 2025.