Thanks to a generous Creation Grant awarded by the New Brunswick Arts Board, I am dedicating myself this year to the creation of a collection which has been on my heart to create for several years. My focus is the adornment of functional wood objects for the purpose of increasing joy of use and repeated day-to-day exposure to fine art and craft.
Influenced by Baltic and Slavic folk art traditions in patterned interior architectural decor, I intend to experiment with fine tip pyrographic techniques to decorate small architectural details and household objects with delicate imagery intended to highlight the unique grain and colour of exposed wood and introduce illustration in areas typically overlooked in interior spaces.
My interest in combining illustration with functional home goods is an exploration of the tension I feel as a professional artist with an innate drive to create and also a mother with small children. When I am kept out of my studio by the demands of domestic labour, I tend to channel that frustration into bringing my artistic practice into the domestic sphere in small ways. Burning designs onto my wooden kitchenware, combining pyrography with mediums historically associated with female domesticity like embroidery, and decorating handmade brooms are all ways I have begun to explore this inward tension.
I’ve begun sourcing pieces and materials and I’m working on completing my first piece, a very clear exploration of these tensions with the adornment of a symbol of the domestic sphere and labor – a beautiful antique spinning wheel with classical illustrations of women in various life stages. I see this piece as evoking a wheel of the year, divided into four sections, continually spinning in the cycle of labor in its functional lifetime.
This activity is supported by the New Brunswick Arts Board
Cette activité est soutenue par le Conseil des arts du Nouveau-Brunswick
