Our Story
Hi, my name is Katy and I am the maker
behind Imprint Casts.
(photo above by Alan McCredie)
It was my inspiring mum, Sue, who first learned the casting technique during an afternoon workshop in London with the artist Rachel Dein. What started as a personal project to cast her own stunning garden in Fife, has grown arms and legs in the last four years.
Imprint Casts, the business, was born from an increasing demand from friends and family for her botanical tiles. I took over from her in 2020 and now manage all the making, sales, marketing, and everything else (small indie business wearing all the hats type situation!) but still need the nod of approval from the matriarch before signing off on any casts.
My mum is green-fingered sort who has managed to create a garden of Eden out of a converted cattle shed in our Fife home. So all the technical plant knowledge comes from Mama Sue and a lot of the flowers used for Imprint casts come from our beautiful garden.
I work from between a little barn studio in Fife and a small inner city studio in Edinburgh (where I live). The Fife studio is part of the steading designed by my parents who are both architects, surrounded by the epic garden my mum has created over the past 25 years. Without my amazing mum, Imprint would not exist. I look forward to getting to know you and making some special casts for you.
Photo by Alan McCredie
Photo by Alan McCredie
The Process
All my botanical casts are made using the same unique casting process and all made entirely by hand. The imprint of the flowers and foliage is taken in clay and then preserved in plaster of Paris after all remnants of the flowers have been carefully removed from the clay by hand with tweezers. Seed by seed and petal by petal.
Mum taught me how to cast during a couple of sessions in her old garage workshop and I have taken on the medium and experimented over the years with different plasters, finishes and clay to get the result I can now achieve.
The Imprint Garden
This is the beautiful garden my wonderful Mum and Dad have built over 25 years. They have transformed what was an old farm steading and cattle shed into this total paradise which I am so lucky to call my home from home (I get up here but now live in Edinburgh and spend a few nights in Fife a week casting) - its a total paradise. All of my stock casts are made with flowers and foliage hand-picked from the garden and woodland.
