Calderdale: The sweet success and industrial legacy left by a Yorkshire town

Sent to her when she was six after her grandfather bought her the gift, Kate has treasured his postcard ever since, along with the architect’s technical drawing tools.

Tidily kept in a case lettered with their shared initials, the instruments have been put back into use adding the technical details to the landmarks and locations in bold and brilliant colourscapes synonymous with Kate’s signature style.

“My grandfather bought me a proper paintbox and a proper paintbrush and said ‘you are going to be an architect.’ He was an architect and a really good draughtsman and when I went to stay with him in Minehead in Somerset I remember spending a day in his studio. He taught me to draw and use a ‘t’ square and a set square and paper came off the roll. It was technical drawing and perspective drawing. He taught me how to draw plans for a house – I would have been eight or nine at the time,” recalls Kate. “I used to love drawing tiny so if my mum had tickets for something she was selling for a raffle they were perfect bits of card I could use.” Inspired by the colourful palette of the cottages within her Suffolk surroundings, Kate re-purposed the raffle tickets into tiny drawings of colourful abodes. “Suffolk is full of pretty cottages with roses around the door and that is what I used to draw all the time.”

Further encouragement from her parents through art books, among them the richly decorated ‘Book of Hours’ by Duc de Berry, and art gallery visits exposed Kate to different mediums and styles. “I was always looking at art, and analysing art, which came from my dad and his dad. Dad said he always loved art, but when he went to high school boys had to learn technical drawing so he was always keen to encourage me. He was always telling me I should follow it and see where it went.”

Kate contemplated following her father into teaching after art college but, with her family’s encouragement, chose to follow her heart. Moving North to study for her Fine Art and English Literature Degree, with specialism in Textiles, at York St John University, exposed Kate to a contrasting and far more dramatic landscape than Suffolk’s flat topography and colourful cottages.

Further scientific based study for her Masters in Textile Technology at Huddersfield University gave Kate the practical skills she used designing uniforms in Leeds. “It was quite limiting because you were doing designs for other people.”

Kate quelled her frustrations buying inks in captivating colours to experiment on her desk at home. “It was all about opulent colours.” The colourful artwork she has produced since becoming a full-time artist 17 years ago when she had Hattie, the eldest of her three children, Kate says was born out of the limitations of her sensible job.

Her initial foray into self-employment was selling tiny abstract and Japanese style paintings on markets. Subsequently selling her work into galleries, and eventually launching her website (katelycett.co.uk) increased her audience and gained Kate custom in countries including America, Canada, Dubai, Europe and South Africa. Participating in exhibitions led to other projects. Inspired by the reminiscences Kate received following her exhibition profiling ‘The Lost Houses of the South Pennines’ at Bankfield Museum, Halifax in 2015, she crowdfunded the publication of a book.

Dipping into archives, Kate dusted off papers and plans to painstakingly research and tell the story through detailed artwork of the area’s grand houses, among them Castle Carr whose dominating presence once loomed above Luddenden Dean. “It was all about disappearing Yorkshire mansions. Mill owning families built these fantastically grand houses and they have gone within 100 years,” says Kate.

The artist’s latest exhibition ‘Engineers and Chocolatiers’ running from Saturday June 29 until Saturday December 21 at Bankfield Museum, profiles the legacy of Calderdale’s industrial landscape and landmarks. It is an area Kate is more than familiar with since her husband, Dan’s job brought them to Hebden Bridge. Home in this creative town is a converted pub with a fascinating history and plenty of memories for regulars with fond recollections. The remnants of an old chimney, understood to have been part of the now demolished mill which stood opposite the family home, dominates the backyard beyond Kate’s spacious home studio where she recalls her early perceptions of Yorkshire.

“When I first moved here I found the moors bleak, slightly suffocating and slightly agoraphobic.” Exploring the area with an artist’s eye, Kate began to absorb her surroundings.

“There is nowhere like Calderdale because it is spectacular and it is so unlike where I come from. Suffolk is flat and rural and all about agriculture. It doesn’t really have industry, just farming, so everything is managed. It doesn’t have that light and rawness you get around here which I have grown to love. I’m not scared of the moors any more but it took a while.”

For the exhibition, which she was invited to participate in as part of Culturedale, celebrating Calderdale’s 50th anniversary through a year-long programme of creativity and culture, Kate is producing 13 pieces of artwork profiling locations symbolising the area’s industrial heritage. Dean Clough, North Bridge, the Victorian and iron structure straddling Halifax town centre, Piece Hall, the Square Chapel; Victoria Theatre; Eureka children’s museum, Harveys department store are among the landmarks Kate has re-created in colourful splendour.

Working in pen and ink rather than watercolour gives her greater flexibility for layering.

“I like the luminosity of inks and the way they are fluid and do their own thing. In a way they are like watercolours, but watercolours bleed into each other and lose their luminosity. Inks keep their colours, they don’t muddy,” explains Kate.

Gold leaf, and the gold thread she stitches into her designs on her quilting machine, are an opulent feature of her designs.

“My d ad bought me a book of gold leaf and my work now has gold leaf in it. I had always played around with colour but nothing is as nice as gold leaf,” explains Kate. Her mum was the influence behind the stitched detail. “I remember mum saying people like hand finishing which is where the idea came from.

"I always have the idea of where the stitch is going to go. I know where the strong lines are. It’s decorative but part of the composition as well.”

Patterned tiles, symbolic of Kate’s textile background, in bright sweetie paper colours, reflect the area’s rich toffee town heritage.

“Halifax is where toffee was invented; we have a sweet factory in Elland and the whole valley is about engineering,” says Kate.

Oats Royd Mill, one of the largest textile mills in the area, encapsulated by Midgely Moor, Sowerby Bridge with its legendary geese, colourful canal boats moored on the waterway – an important trade route in times past - also come under scrutiny in Kate’s showcase which is supported by Calderdale Council.

Some of the featured locations were suggestions following her call out on social media.

“I am not local and so being able to do something with the eyes of an outsider I don’t take it for granted. I chose here and the fact that Bankfield has asked me to do this, and people are moved by what I have painted, is a nice feeling.”