artist statement

I have been creating contemporary wall work since the early 1990’s and am known for my extensive experience in a wide range of surface design, dyeing, screen printing and wax resist techniques. I have trained with the London City and Guilds programme as well as the Ontario School of Art and Design and the Vancouver Island School of Art. Most recently, my focus has involved an exploration of the Industrial Shoreline, which examines the working harbour, where the industry of shipping goods and products from our factories and fields intersects with our fragile marine ecosystem, declining fish and mammal populations and concerns over increasing water scarcity. The urban harbours present a dichotomy in this last series between the hard and soft; the rigidity of steel and the fluidity of cloth. My drawn, painted, and stitched lines indicate a variety of mark making, inks and paints on the fabrics to provide the rich patinas of rust, rafters and steel and sea.

Vessels-Art of the Feminine continues my use of textiles, stitch, and surface design but it strongly influenced by a recent art residency in Crete where I began a focus on both contemporary and ancient pottery including glass vases and shaped containers. In drawing, printing and painting small compositions and further study at the local archaeological museums, it occurred to me that many of the vessels and shapes resembled female forms. Some of these shapes mimicked pregnancy with protruding midriffs, or aged crones with sagging bellies. Indeed, some shapes were made with torsos, arms and heads, reaffirming my belief of these pottery pieces as female forms.

Vessels – Art of the Feminine is a new approach to my textile art practise, working in dimensional art rather than my previous flat wall art. I see challenges in learning to create interior support structure for the vessels and I anticipate that modeling and testing would be required. This collection is also the story of my life. As I approach “aged crone” status I have lived through and experienced most of these different stages of the body/vessels. As a teen I was both confused and surprised by my changing body during puberty and again as I carried and birthed my children. I have been the recipient of hateful messages and vitriol flung at me simply because I am a woman. And now, as I have slowly embraced my age, the aches and pains and the inevitable and inexorable move to death – the final body/vessel will be simple and shroud-like, similar to those mummified remains found in archeological excavations. The context and theme of this installation is a very different proposal for me, challenging in content but I hope to encourage public interaction, excite curiosity, begin conversations, and present my underlying theme of the female body/vessel as it ages from birth through to death through the lens of narrative and stitch.