Twelve members of ArtSaturna will be showing new pieces at the Saturna Café from December 8th to January 4th. This creative dozen works in several media, so the show promises to be varied and interesting.
An informal opening is planned for Saturday, December 10, from 3:30 pm to 5 pm.
The Café is at 101 Narvaez Bay Road, a few minutes from the ferry terminal.
Come and meet the artists!
Inspired by the emerald world that surrounds us on this island, Ellen Bourassa and I chose a green theme for this group of quilts, currently on display at the Saturna Café.
Ellen’s pieces are distinctive because she chose black and white as a backdrop to highlight her green elements. Her strict palette showcases high contrast and strong lines, both in her design choices and texturing style.
As for me, I’ve returned to sewing and rediscovered the joy of texture after a long hiatus during which I focused on photography and gardening. These new quilts offer a fantasy view of greenery both topside and underwater. They are an excuse to stitch away and play with flow, interpreting the wind on foliage and water currents on seaweeds and kelps.
There are more quilts in process on my design table. #inspired
The web queen. She worked that web between trees and is adding finishing touches. I am happy I saw her before I walked through it.
Some of her colleagues adopt a different approach. They lie in wait on a flower, for example. No nets for them.
I was fascinated by this one. It even has a pink marking on its abdomen, to better camouflage itself. Impressive. For five days, I returned to this lily and check on the spider’s hunt.
And bingo! On day two, it got a bee. The spider spent a lot of effort dragging this victim around the edge of the petal and under it, in order to package it in silk… for later consumption, I guess. This took several hours and I returned every two or three hours, to check on her progress…
So it goes. As my grandchildren would say, “that’s the circle of life”.
It’s been a couple of very warm weeks on the coast. Too hot to be in the garden in the afternoon, we seek the shade.
And when evening comes, we go back to the western deck, to admire the golden hour tinged with red, as the sun goes down behind the distant mountains of Vancouver Island.
After a creative drought (pun intended), I returned to my cutting table and sewing machine to express my feelings about the current drought. The weather in BC has been unusually hot these last few weeks. My concerns about the rising temperatures are expressed in a group of small studies, most of them painted on canvas, then pieced and stitched.
Above, a small pieced and stitched canvas portrait of the mixed conifer forest on the island and the kelp forest underwater. And the threat of wildfire, always present during the summer.
For several years, outflow winds from the mainland have brought us smoke from the forest fires in British Columbia, Oregon and Washington state. In August, evening brings us sunsets heavily tinged with orange.
By mid-summer, arbutus trees shed quantities of leaves, and I get to admire every shade of tan and russet on display on the tree’s bark too. An intuitive painting, this canvas needed only minimal stitch lines to create a little relief.
This is my protest quilt. While walking on the road, I found cigarette butts that had been tossed out of cars (I’m guessing). Right by the dry grasses that line the road… This small quilt evokes the island shore, the forest, the heat from the sun, the danger of smoldering embers. I hope that everyone takes care, so we can avoid a fire this summer. Other regions of BC have not been so lucky.
Until August 19, these quilts and those of my co-conspirator, Ellen Bourassa, are on display at the Saturna Café.
