Gillian was born and raise in Victoria, BC in a boating family and developed her love of the sea at an early age. When she moved to Saltspring Island more than 35 years ago, she was introduced to kayak paddling. Since then she has made many trips with a waterproof camera tucked into her life jacket through the Gulf Islands, on the east and west coasts of Vancouver Island and as far north as Haida Gwaii.She is fascinated by the coastline edges where the land meets the sea and the ever-changing reflections in the water of islands and trees.
She started making fabric collage seascapes based on these photos-a realistic illusion. She often paints and dyes fabrics to get the colour and effect she wants.
She loves working with her sewing machine and pushin the edges of what it can do. This includes working on water soluble materials to produce machine lace tree branches and leaves and seaweed, and on painted and coloured photos to create depth and texture.
StatementWorking from memory, I have dyed some impressionistic background cotton fabrics. I have used paint and photo prints to enhance the background, followed by machine lace tree branches, tree trunks from the embellisher machine, stencils and trapunto and added shibori dyed fabrics. I love the raw edge look with lots of texture.
