Love Never Dies

Cloth Book

Detail from back cover

Shall put more images
up as I find them

This book measures
about 20" wide
by 14" high by
3" deep.
10 pages

hand made paper
artist canvas
gold leaf
photographs of Manitowaning Bay
drawings
stitching
pressed lily of the valley
and pressed violets

Halcrow House

Water
colour

last of the series

A famous building on
highway 6
at ten
mile point
Manitoulin
Island

unframed

Moisture and Greenness

Hand dyed and embroidered quilt

Hand dyed linen and cotton
machine pieced, hand applique

the central cross shaped area
has been cut, slashed, then
mended. It is a metaphor
for hope - we can do something
about the world's situation.
We can mend it

The title "moisture and greenness"
comes from some reading I did several
years ago about the medieval mystic
nun, Hildegarde of Bingen. She
wrote that what the world truly
needed was moisture and greenness.

It has been exhibited several times and is part of my protection blanket series.
52" x 87" 2006

Hawberry Bush

water colour and coloured pencil


unframed

2000

New Sister

Ink, coloured pencil on hand made paper

unframed, 22" x 22"
1989

The blood shimmers, the heart beats

acrylic and watercolour on paper and on photograph
found paper, leaf, sheer fabric, thread, gold ink
stitched

unframed but has a custom mat, 20" x 12"
2002

Gold of the grass, Lead of the sky
Marked off by blue flames
By the freshness of the dew
The blood shimmers, the heart beats
Paul Eluard

The pictured house used to be on our road,
but is no longer there.

Blue Eyed Satin Journal

Satin and taffeta machine paper pieced onto personal journal pages and images from women's magazines.

The papers are left in so that the piece is two sided.
This piece is part of my velvet journal series. 35" wide x 27" high

The front symbolises how we present ourselves to the world.
The back is the inside. It's more interesting and messy.

1999

It was exhibited in 2001 at the Homer Watson House in Kitchener Ontario as part of my solo exhibition, My Hand Sings Red.

protection dress

charcoal rubbing
22" x 32"
framed

Ah, Fill the Cup

Watercolour and bindweed
21" x 21" framed

xxxvii
Ah, fill the cup:
what boots it to repeat
How time is slipping underneath our feet:
unborn tomorrow and dead yesterday,
Why fret about them
if today be sweet!

At the family cottage there is a collection of old books, one of which is a tiny 1905 edition of Fitgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The bindweed grows on the beach there.

Grandmother To Grandmother

The featured embroidery in this piece was purchased from African Threads, Valerie Hearder's project for Stephen Lewis' grandmother to grandmother campaign. I asked Valerie to find out more information about the artist and what the imagery meant and this is what Jackie Downs, the co-ordinator of Keiskamma art projects in Africa wrote back in an email.

The cow sampler you asked about: This was made when we were focusing a lot of our work on cows. In these pieces we encouraged the embroiderer or beader to draw a picture of their own cow. Cows are the wealth of the Xhosa nation and in customary Xhosa culture the cows are a mans responsibility. In our project it is the women who are taking responsibility for their families and lives so through needlework they are working with the cows.
The name of the artist appears on the top in this case Nobonile (at least it looks like Nobonile), she is from the village Bell which is about 15 km from Hamburg. The name of the cow is at the bottom, Flepu. My friend Noseti says it is just a name but probably has significance to the family"
As you can see, this is a very strong embroidery and I am in love with it. I hope that the artist Nobonie, doesn't mind that I've combined our art work in this way. Thanks Nobonie. The embroidery is on burlap with glass beads.



The quilt is made from over dyed cottons.
The hand is painted.
Machine pieced and hand quilted
Bound with hand dyed velvet.

The back is also beaded and has mirror embroidery.Fabrics include velvet and rayon.
40 percent of the selling price will go to the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign.

This piece was a focal point in my 2008 solo exhibition, Red Thread. It was also exhibited twice in 2007, although much larger. I have overdyed it and cut it to be narrower.

Emily Carr Visited Me

Hand painted quilt with blanket stitch embroidery
that also acts as the quilting stitch.
Hand dyed and commercially available fabrics, machine pieced.
Beads, acrylic paint, cotton floss, cotton and rayon fabrics.
Some hand applique.
Hand embroidered and hand quilted

My interpretation of Emily Carr's oil painting
Scorned as Timber, Beloved by the Sky is the focal point.
Emily Carr was fifty six when she went back into the rainforests of British Columbia and painted her most powerful work. Emily Carr inspires me to keep going at this art stuff.
This detail shows some of the beading and hand quilting near the top of the quilt.

Emily Carr Visited Me has been exhibited numerous times in solo and group exhibitions. Most recently, it travelled with Tactile Architecture for aproximately a year across the United States. In 2005 it showed in Toronto at the Ontario Craft Council gallery in an exhibition entitled Metamorphosis.

Later in 2005 and early 2006, Valerie Hearder included it in an exhibition of Canadian quilts she curated for travel to Japan. A detail of the blanket stitch/hand quilting.

Awarded three prizes in the 2005 Ontario Juried Show, it has been professionally appraised.
32" x 70"
2005