Clare Attwell
Returning Home, 2021
Cotton Fabric, painted sheer polyester fabric, stitched (40" x 42" x 0.25")
Ecological regeneration depends on much more than habitat restoration, such as building salmon ladders to reconnect returning salmon to their natural spawning grounds. It requires a radical reorientation to living in right-relationship with all life, which includes a new kind of listening and humility. Can we learn to do that?
Edie Brown
interconnected, 2019
Silk, thread, indigo (52" x 14-1/2" x 0.25")
Linda Coe
Garden Almanac: Summer l, 2020
Linen substrate, cotton, linen, and silk yarns. Fabric paint and dye (32" x 33")
The Garden Almanac Series is a visual exploration of my garden through textures and colours. Over the course of the year, gardens become a natural "almanac.“ Their success or failure record the changing seasons and the state of our relationship to the earth—via extremes in climate change.
Susan Duffield
Ancient, 2021
Cotton Composted and distressed (30" x 20" x 0.5")
Found. Recovered. Hints of a past life.
Wendy Duffield
Gaze, 2022
Paper, paint, ephemera, needlework, fur, cotton (17" x 14" x 1")
Bryony Dunsmore
Everything Is Connected No. 3, 2022
Re-used cotton, over-dyed with mud dyes; commercially printed, weathered and faded cotton fabric; weathered, faded and re-used cotton canvas originally coloured with dilute latex paint, hemp cord (38" x 17")
"When I think of ‘connection’, I think of the way all life is intricately connected. Every living thing depends on every other living thing. When enough of these connections are broken, the whole cannot survive. The letters forming the words 'Everything is Connected' on this piece, were stitched separately on 4” x 4” squares of canvas and nailed outdoors to my fence in 2019. After they'd weathered for 18 months, I took them down and re-purposed them to make this piece. "
Laura Feeleus
Airborne, 2022
Wire, netting, felted wool, threads, yarn, muslin, silk, buttons (20" diameter x 1")
"Air contains tiny solid particles called aerosols, such as dust, sea salt, pollen and ash. “Airborne” is my imagining of these particles as seen under a microscope. It is one of a triptych. Its companions are “Groundwork” (the earth) and “Tidepool” (the ocean). "
Anni Hunt
Marking Time, 2022
Acrylic/Oil Sticks/Inks on Canvas (58" x 10" x 1.5")
My triptych "Marking Time" was an expression of our time in lockdown during the Covid-19 Pandemic; a dictionary interpretation reads; To do little while waiting for something that is going to happen, a holding pattern, kicking your heels, twiddling your thumbs. But it also struck a chord with all of those 'incarcerated' or 'confined' in some way or other throughout our history and how keeping a track of time was the essence to one's sanity.
Ingrid Lincoln
win Scarred panel 01, 2020
Silk organza, silk thread (29" x 20")
In my studio I found some silk panels which I had dyed. During the pandemic I started stitching on them and was struck how they reminded me of scarred skin. The hand stitches resembled suture lines which had healed over and left a scar. This reference to trauma and healing was a fitting image as I felt bruised and scarred by the experience of isolation during this difficult time.
Dale MacEwan
Deb Brown, 2021
Cotton Fabric (19" x 19" x 1/2 ")
Experimenting with my photos using apps on the iPad to alter images to create a new story.
Judi MacLeod
Channeling Hundertwasser, 2021
Handyed antique linen tablecloth, handdyed linen and cotton (64" x 48" x 1/8")
Hundertwasser's use of colour in his art and architecture has always amazed me. I find his sense of colour can affect your spirit and it plays to my love of colour.
Barbara McCaffrey
French Lessons, 2021
French map, dictionary pages, embroidery (10" (24 pieces) x 8" (24 pieces") x 1" (24 pieces))
I wanted to brush up on my French before travelling to France. After a refresher course at University, I created these pieces using twenty-four French Larousse dictionary illustrations, printed them on cloth and embroidered conversational sentences on the cloth pages. They are adhered to cradleboards.
Susan Purney Mark
Loading on the North Shore, 2022
Hand dyed and painted cotton and linen (58" x 41" x 1/2")
Inspired by images of ships loading and unloading their goods along the north shore of Vancouver Harbour, Susan works with piecing and collage to portray a visually distinct contrast of the Industrial Shoreline.
Gill Riordan
When will we Learn?, 2021
Multiple linen threads, silk, padding and beads (12" x 12" x 1")
My daughter gained her diving certificate in the multicolored coral reefs of Australia. This was twenty years ago, now these same corals are all bleached and dead from global warming. They are a clear warning to mankind that our behavior must change.
Thomas Roach
Soul Map, 2021
Natural dyes on cotton and silk, hand dyed threads (24.5" x 24")
Hand-stitched topographic contours of the soul locating the intersection of spirit with place. Reuleaux triangles repeat declaring the Divine even in the infinitesimal. Shear black organza revealing the interior construction unobscured by batting. Not a quilt, and yet a quilt – filled with the narrative content of the soul.
Karen Selk
Whispers of Plants - Smoke Bush, 2022
Botanicals, silk fabric, fibre, threads and cocoons (23" x 16")
All flora holds the perfect mixture of science, magic and beauty. With minerals, tannins and alchemy I endeavor to coax the spirit of plants onto cloth, releasing their own pigments. The wonderland of living plants deserves our respect and protection, for without them we would not exist.
Sally Sheppard
Vanilla-leaf, 2021
Cotton, synthetic lace and sheers, embroidery floss (30" x 20" x 1/8")
The vanilla-leaf is also called deer foot or goose foot. It grows in coastal, southern British Columbia and Vancouver Island and gives off a pleasant vanilla scent when dried. The sheer fabrics in this piece represent the fragility and beauty of the ecosystem.
Michelle Sirois Silver
Ice Islands, 2021
Fibre, found object, plastic, resin (30" x 16" x 16")
Ice islands are drifting and deteriorating icebergs. In July 2020 40% of the Milne Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island calved and broke into pieces, one the size of Manhattan, which are now floating in the Arctic Ocean. Climate scientists at Carleton University, Ottawa attributed the event to rising temperatures in the atmosphere and ocean water beneath the shelf.
Lesley Turner
Pregnancy Mandala, 2022
Woolen blankets, worn garments, cotton bedsheet (36" x 36" x 1.5")
Pre-history's ancient reproduction symbols fell out of favor in many societies' cultural expressions. With the shift away from patriarchal views on life it is time to reacquaint ourselves with these still powerful symbols and to develop a new collection to enable us to honor those who nurture new life.
Sandra Vander Schaaf
Brittle | an act of time and place, 2022
Salvaged altar frontal lining and oyster shell (8.25" x 8.25" x 1.75")
The brittle textures of the antique altar cloth and the crumbling oyster shell testify to the effects of time and pressure in unseen places. Both are emblems of sacred stories of nourishment and provision, spiritual and physical. Held together here, in stitch and fold, what tender stories might they tell?
Pelka Wiltshire
Flows Through, 2022
Fabric scraps, thread trash, zippers, tulle (42" x 47" x 0.25")
This piece entitled "Flows Through" is part of a series responding to beaver activity at our local provincial park; a process of recording digitally, altering images, creating paper collages and finally reiterating with this textile piece. There are many metaphors embedded in the title and use of materials.