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In November 2016 I participated in a show at Gallery 200 in Ottawa in which the the challenge was to create wearable art. I chose to create a costume for a figment of my imagination -- Flora - the younger sister of Zena warrior princess, herself a ficticious character. Not only younger, but also gentler, Flora has no wish to go to battle, but chooses instead to spend her time in fields and forest communing with Nature. When approached by an aggressor rather than fighting, she hides under her 'cloak of invisibility' a giant spider web. However, if the attacker is not fooled, she does have a weapon - her magic walking stick which she uses to turn her enemies into catapillars. By doing so she forces the opponent to take a time out while forming a chrysalis and eventually morphing into a beautiful gentle creature like herself.
Spring 2017 saw a 'portrait' show set up in Gallery 200. This was my artist statement beside
" Artist Emerging"
Always a landscape artist I took up the challenge of this portrait show by pulling out all the different types of wool, hair and filament in my studio and then waited for the artist within to emerge from the fibres - much as I emerged as a landscape artist instead of a weaver/spinner after I discovered the ancient art of feltmaking well over 3 decades ago.
Materials used were: wool ( many different sheep breeds) Mohair,
Cashmere, Silk, Alpace, Llama, Qiviuk( Musk Ox ) Mountain Goat, AngoraRabbit, Artic Fox, Chinchilla, Possum, Dog ( Samoyed and Husky), Cat ( grey domestic short hair named Oliver) Flax, Hemp and Ramie.