Blog

A huge thanks to Cherie Thiessen for writing such a wonderful article about me and my work and another huge thanks to Aqua magazine for publishing it:)

Couture for Funerals Runway.

A chance to use some of my bone collection!

I am thrilled to have an image of one of my pieces appear in a paper written by Arnaud Quertinmont, Department Egypte/Proche-Orient Conservateur at Musee royal de Mariemont in Morlanwelz, Belgium. This paper was written to accompany an exhibit currently showing at the museum called De Lin et De Laine. Textiles Egyptiens Du 1er Millenaire. It highlights coptic textiles from the museum's collection.

I love these two signs. They illustrate the message with alarming hilarity.

I bought some natural dye extracts from Maiwa on Granville Island in Vancouver and have been experimenting with them for the past few weeks. Gorgeous colours and a slow, meditative process. This is the first batch of dyes on various silk fabrics.

I love the play of light on different bodies of water at different times of day and in different seasons.

Browning Harbour.

Looking out towards Salt Spring from Pender Island.

Float plane taking off from the Port Washington dock on Pender Island.

A collection of some wonderful woodland characters.

Slightly Tipsy Stump.

Super Friendly Stump.

Wise Stump.

Flirtatious Mastodon Stump.

I just finished dying some silk scarves and realized they look like stained glass as they lie on the table waiting to be ironed.

I was lucky enough to spend a day in Toronto earlier this month and spent my time with Joe Lewis and Janet Hayward wandering around the Royal Ontario Museum and the Textile Museum. What a wonderful day. So many marvels.

A highlight of the ROM for me was this large wall piece by El Anatsui, a textile hero of mine.

The Textile Museum was hosting an incredible exhibit of the gorgeous larger-than-life, sumptuously dyed kimono by Itchiku Kubota. This is only the second time his work has been shown in Canada. I have been a fan ever since Nicole Robillarde gave me the catalogue of his first exhibit in Hull in 1995. How amazing to be able to see his work in person!

Last year was the inaugural ZooIslander event on Pender Island. This was the brainchild of the very talented and creative Madelin Emery. With the help of many of the artists and performers on this island, she put together an extravaganza which delighted and astonished the full-capacity audience. I was lucky enough to take part in Madelin's ARTemis runway last year. I designed, created and modeled a cape made out of bubble wrap and feathers. I was inspired by air, the life-giving force that surrounds us and I called this piece Atropos after the Fate whose job it was to cut the thread of life that had been spun and measured by her two sister Fates.

This year ZooIslander 2018 took place. How could it match the spectacle of the first? It did and even surpassed the 2017 show. This year I was also in Madelin's ARTemis runway. I created a medieval cope covered in tea bag packages and arranged in a pattern containing the Fibonacci number sequence of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. Not the traditional blocks that create a spiral, but a more decorative pattern of my own invention. Underneath I wore an abacus girdle I had made for Hypatia, who was a mathematician, astrologer and philosopher in 4th century Alexandria. It is based on the ancient Peruvian method of accounting called a quipu.