New works find their place

Although May 2024 seems like such a long time ago, my needle and threads have been making marks on two pieces that were outcomes from my show in the Salt Spring library. When I accepted these commissions it was important to me to clarify that my work is rooted in slow, contemplative practice and the completed pieces would take some time. It has been such an interesting journey for me to be working on commissioned pieces in contrast to creating from what is asking to be expressed on the day.

The second commission now hangs in the treatment space at The Heart Acupuncture where it holds space for the ancient healing of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Ancient Wisdom - full piece hanging from bamboo

Images from top left - Chinese herbs; symbols for earth, fire, metal and water

Creating this piece was a healing in itself. I am a regular beneficiary of Classical Chinese Medicine at The Heart and working on this commission was a profound communication with the powerful influences of the medicine. Themes of connection and oneness, an understanding of the elements of life resonating in the living world around us, healing as a whole being, interconnection with earth energies, the life force from which we draw our wholeness and wellness flowing through the fields and channels of our Qi.

The third commission began to form itself in my studio from the images, sounds, and scents of my summer wanderings. The request was for an ocean themed piece inspired by ‘Low Tide’ one from my May 2024 show that was now hanging in a Vancouver home. Preparations for this piece took me to the tidelines of beaches on Salt Spring Island and BC’s Sunshine Coast, where the meeting place of waters and pebbles offered inspiration for a piece evoking the curious and often mysterious areas in the zone between high and low tides. I explored deposits of seaweeds, shells, and multi-coloured pebbles strewn along the line marking the waves’ highest reaches. I marvelled at the rich layering of bladderwrack seaweed on shoreline rocks, floating fronds of kelp, tidepools and hidden places for crustaceans and mollusks. Back in my studio the new ocean themed piece became about that zone between high and low tides, the busy place of so much sea life.

Intertidal - the markings on the fabric used in this piece come from land-based growth, the intertidal life forms are suggested in the application of shells, beads, pebbles, frayed threads and dried kombucha scoby. One short lyric is hidden under a veil of cloth, a nod to the hiding places of the intertidal creatures.

barnacle limpet and crab

veiled by bladderwreck

rocky foreshore crustaceans hide

in wave washed intertidal homes

The heartfelt appreciation expressed by the recipient of this commission reminded me that the art I make is about connection and communication between the living world, myself as artist and those who view and witness the beauty that comes from my studio practice. It is the desire to amplify and bring beauty and joy into my work so that it can be shared with others that is at the root of my creative practice.

As the cool air suggests autumn, the leaves dance their way to the ground and daylight hours become shorter, I am turning to the full moons which are the focus of a series of moon circles in process to be part of a fibre art show in February 2026 at the Ferry Building Gallery in West Vancouver, BC. Also on the winter creative list are some more hangings of various sizes, and perhaps one or two more ‘spirit’ dolls.

With gratitude to the Hul'q'umi'num and SENĆOŦEN speaking people of the Cowichan tribes on whose unceded traditional lands I live.

With gratitude to Salt Spring Arts for their generous support of my practice.