Welcome to my studio.
Let me show you around. This place is my pride and joy, and one of my favourite places on earth. It sits in the back of my house, which is on a tree-lined street in Hamilton, Ontario, in the shadow of the beautiful Niagara Escarpment. A lot of the inspiration behind my work comes from this fascinating region: where urban textures and natural wonder mingle, not always comfortably.
I guess you could say my creative work takes two approaches. Some of my work reflects and celebrates nature: its textures, colours and shapes, its raw elements and materials. The rest of my work is devoted to finding new, interesting and better uses for things that usually get thrown in the garbage. The trendy word for this is upcycling.
My creative process doesn't begin with a specific craft or discipline. Some days, it starts with something I've seen or sensed while I'm in my garden or going for a walk: the creative result could be a copper and wood necklace, a linocut print, or a mixed media piece. Other days, the process starts when I see a piece of garbage and think, "What could I make with that?" It all makes for a studio that has a lot of shelves, drawers and bins full of curiousities. And most days, I know where to find everything. The studio has two work areas. In one corner is a big old wooden desk (from my husband's childhood home) where I do stuff that requires brute force and mighty tools: metalwork and upcycling, mostly. |
My other work area is by a nice big window that looks out to my back garden and the Niagara Escarpment ("The Mountain", as we call it in Hamilton, which makes western Canadians scoff). Here I do work that needs a more delicate touch, like carving wood and linoleum for relief prints, writing calligraphy, paper carving, candy wrapper origami, painting, collaging and a bunch of other things.
I feel incredibly blessed to have this wonderful space in which to work, and I hope the creations that emerge from it will, in turn, bless others just a little. |