A Croscombe artist and printmaker who made enough facemasks for the whole of her home village used material from local producer Westfield Medical.

Shelley Dyer-Gibbins and her team of dedicated sewers have created a stockpile of fabric facemasks so every villager has access to one, and they are striking by featuring her own Cinegirl design.

More than 600 masks have been made and they are being made available for free for every person in Croscombe.

Shelley told Nub News: "After watching the news saying about lack of PPE, I decided to make my own masks from fabric I had laying around the house."

"Ryan Evans from Westfield Medical Ltd donated the precious SMMS medical fabric after a Facebook post he had sent out to our village.

"Myself and others responded to form a volunteer group which made the plain blue masks. I was still making my art masks but combined the SMMS fabric with them also.

"The other volunteers who have done an amazing job are Louise Tully, Kate Egan, Alison Hodges, Ann Watson, Elaine Watson and Hilary Shergold."

The story has gone global with newspaper, radio and TV reports of her efforts going across the globe.

Originally trained as a graphic designer, Shelley worked in London, Bristol and Bath for more than 20 years.

Based in Croscombe, she's now an artist and printmaker, mainly specialising in linocut printmaking as well being as an artist in schools throughout the South West of England, teaching and lecturing printmaking.

Being self taught she produced Magpies, which was sold to The Atkinson Gallery for their private Collection in 2017.

Shortly afterwards, she won the 21st National Open Art's Original Print Prize with Cinegirl, which is the biggest open art competition in the UK with more than 4,000 entrants.

Shelley is now selling the art masks online with a proportion of sales going to help food banks. Visit her website for more info: here

You can read Nub News original story about Westfield Medical here:

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