Gallery and Events
Gallery
Concept
The phrase The Beholder’s Share describes how personal past experience shapes our experience of art, whether that be enjoyment, bewilderment, disgust or boredom.
The idea that a viewer brings personal meanings to a work, that the brain indeed finishes the work and that this interplay makes all art a collaboration between artist and audience seems akin to life itself -between ourselves, others and the environment. The layered and detailed imagery here, of insects, seagrass, feathers and more, speaks to the earth’s lush environmental diversity and is contrasted with data on land, air and water quality, rising sea temperatures, oil spills, bones and viruses.
Using the interactive, sculptural fortune-teller game structure to present silk textiles embellished with ideas around choice vs chance regarding our natural world and its current threats struck me as appropriate given our lives are a selection of both intentional and random events that we physically and emotionally participate in and assign meaning to as we move forward. Today, neuroscience shows how our experiences actually shape our perceptions, as the brain uses the past to make sense of the outside world. This can be either a benefit or a liability depending on our personal history and drives home that adaptability and perspective, not might, is in fact the desirable trait when we speak of Darwin's often misunderstood & "survival of the fittest”.
Technique
All the work in the gallery is wax resist on silk (3-D folded sculptures) or paper (2-D), using acid dye. Roketsuzome or “Bokashi” is the Japanese batik-like technique more specifically used. The work is comprised of many layers of printing, dye and wax work. In the case of the sculptural pieces, both machine and hand embroidery are used as well as applique and drawing, screen printing and stenciling. Text both embroidered and screenprinted is taken from Yeats poem “ The second coming” written during the Spanish flu pandemic over 100 years ago and is counterbalanced by excerpts from Rumi.
Thanks especially goes to a host of friends who worked collaboratively with me on the hand
embroidery for which I am grateful!
Michelle Goss Baxter
Janet Kennedy
Heidi Kuhrt
Robyn Demner
Caroline Riedel
Margaret Hill
Mille Cattermole
Fu Hoshino
Sasha Heusohn
Shane Barclay
Doomscrolling slouching towards quietus
or doom-scroll·ing
[ doom-skroh-ling ]
Noun Digital Technology. Verb to scroll or surf the internet
The practice of obsessively checking online news for updates, especially on social media feeds, with the expectation that the news will be bad, such that the feeling of dread from this negative expectation fuels a compulsion to continue looking for updates in a self-perpetuating cycle and the inability to step back and disengage.
slouching towards quietus - dedicated to only seeing the worst of things, passing joy on our way to despair
-Joan Didion
Past Events
2022 - Canadian Quilt Association conference lectures , Vancouver B.C. Canada.
"Beyond the decorative - The internal work of content and concept."
"Hybrid vigour -Global ideas on beauty".
2022 - Vancouver Island Surface Design Association conference, Canada
Introductory textile workshop
2022 - Metchosin International summer school of Arts, Canada
Instructor - Introductory textile workshops
2022 - Maiwa textile conferences, Canada
Instructor - textile workshops.
2022 - Vancouver Island Surface design, Canada
Keynote speaker
Past Selected Exhibitions
Chelsea Flower Show London UK
Museum of Garden History London UK
Long Mar Doo Gallery, Chiang Mai Thailand
Women’s Artists Group- Kyoto, Japan
Vancouver Island University faculty exhibition, Nanaimo, Canada.