Sally Sheppard

Sally lives in Nanoose Bay on beautiful Vancouver Island. It is here that she assembles fibre works derived from the inspiration she finds in the local landscape. Her travels are also influence her work.

She comes from a family of needle arts women and has been creating from fabric, thread and yarn since a vey young age. Her mother, an art college graduate, art instructor and fibre artist, was a major influence. Hand and machine embroidery are her favoured foundation techniques, although she frequently incorporates wire, wood and paper in her fibre art and enjoys experimenting beyond traditional needle arts. Most of her work is wall art, sculpture and wearable art. 

Her work was formerly sold through a gallery and is regularly exhibited. As a teenager, she had a small business designing and selling custom shirts and making summer clothing for a boutique. 

For several years she taught fibre art techniques in short workshops, introducing fibre enthusiasts to new ideas and encouraging them to take their work further. Her work is held in private collections in Canada, Australia and Germany.

Sally had a thirty-year career, first in journalism, then college administration, followed by senior positions in government in Ontario and Yukon..

An essential part of my day is a walk in the forest or along the ocean where I look, hear, smell and inspect the life around me. At home, curious about what I’ve experienced, I research plants, trees, birds, mammals and ocean life, and the ecosystems that contain them. All of this leads me to ideas which I sit with until I find a way to express them using fibre, often in conjunction with other materials. 

In this piece, my inspiration was a fallen tree that was beautifully inscribed by insects where its bark had fallen off. Some rubbings with oil paint sticks produced interesting patterns on cloth. The forest had given me some of its beauty. Wanting to showcase what can be found in the forest, I included some petioles from Big-leaf maple trees and wrapped them in threads, still hanging, but from an embroidered fabric.