I began as a painter, with four years of art school at The Alberta College of Art (as it was then) and l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Montreal (now part of the University of Montreal), but even then I was also working with fibre. For years I wove tapestries, dyeing and spinning the yarns I used in them. Since coming to Vancouver Island twenty years ago I have been making quilted pieces, both pieced and raw-edge appliqued, dyeing some of the fabrics I use.
StatementI have loved and connected with and remembered some lines from a Margaret Atwood poem— which include the words, “...but there is one rift, one flaw: that vulnerable bud, knot, hole in the belly where we are nailed to the earth forever”— for about forty years, as these lines perfectly express in words our inseverable relationship to the Earth, and they are an inspiration for my own work. I have free-motion stitched the words around the edges of the piece, and have given free rein to my love of colour, choosing rich silk fabrics and synthetics, and using raw-edge appliqué, free-motion quilting, and hand-stitching.
