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Melanie Stidolph

Dark Shining Wolf, Artist Squares

2026

Dark Shining Wolf, Kennack Sands. Model: Weasel.

Image caption: Dark Shining Wolf, Kennack Sands. Model: Weasel.

Photograph of a rock with a black border. Dark image with high contrast.
Dark Shining Wolf, Kennack Sands

Image caption: Dark Shining Wolf, Kennack Sands

Square photographic image with black border. Two arms of a white woman floating in a shallow pool with weed.
Dark Shining Wolf, TreyarnonDark Shining Wolf I

Image caption: Dark Shining Wolf, Treyarnon

Image description: Dark Shining Wolf I

Square photographic image with black border. Still from a 16mm film - orange light leeks visible on the bottom half of the image. Image is of a piece of stone with a carved hole on the left hand side.
Dark Shining Wolf, Trenoweth

Image caption: Dark Shining Wolf, Trenoweth

Dark Shining Wolf  is a new venture, an alter ego that comes from the meanings of my three given names.

Please visit SHOP to buy direct from my studio in St Ives.

Working from Porthmeor Studios in St Ives, the influence of Hepworth and other modernist artists is felt strongly in the town. The Dark Shining Wolf collection is inspired by scarves from the textile company Ascher (London) Ltd. In 1946 the company commissioned leading British and European artists, including Barbara Hepworth (a great headscarf wearer herself) and Henry Moore, to make scarf designs, or ‘artist squares’. This new collection engages directly with this legacy.

This first collection of 3 scarves – Treyarnon, Kennack Sands and Trenoweth, feature stills from 16mm films of rock, pools and quarries in Cornwall. These sites have special meaning for me – for making work and for losing myself in the elemental. Analogue film has a unique place in the history of St Ives and Britain – the Barnes Museum of Cinematography was Britain’s first film museum,  established and run by John and Carmen Barnes from 1963 to 1986. The collection of pre-cinema and early film equipment, including magic lanterns and projectors was housed in a building on Fore St that was once a cinema itself.

Scarves are for dressing up, for taming your hair in the wind, for matching with your whippet (my dog Lincoln would have loved this) and showing solidarity by wearing shared symbols. Kennack Sands is modelled here by Weasel, owned by Izzy and mascot to the podcast Down to a Fine Art.

Designed in Cornwall and printed in London on silky lightweight fabric made from recycled plastic bottles. Dark Shining Wolf artist squares are printed and sewn in small batches and sent to you with delight.

Please visit SHOP to buy direct from my studio in St Ives.

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