Arbutus Dress

20" x 30".

Hand painted cotton, arbutus leaves.

Arbutus Dress is made of leaves dried and coated with acrylic medium so that they resemble fragments of Flemish oil paintings. That the Arbutus was mentioned in Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle - after he observed the trees in Tierra del Fuego - was a fact I did not learn until I’d fashioned this simple shift. I chose to feature arbutus leaves because of their beauty and individuality. Arbutus trees, which cling to rock faces on shallow soil, shed their blood-red bark in shreds, leaving trunks smooth and pistachio-coloured. This phenomenon, coupled with the fact that arbutus trees are finding it harder to thrive amongst the ubiquitous Canadian West Coast firs, adds to their vulnerability.