Exhibition Information
I am driven to create in order to express myself, my experience and my understanding of that experience. Creativity, I have found, is the best way to explore and understand myself, others and the world around me.
I have been influenced by textiles from a very young age as my mother owns and operates a vintage clothing store. I am inspired by the colours, patterns, and above all, the textures of fabrics and fibrous materials. With the Flamingo Project, and Theodora in particular, I enjoyed the process of combining diverse materials - felt, silk, feathers, metal, glass, styrofoam – into a cohesive work.
I am also attracted to the long history of textiles, and its relationship to women’s history. Driven by a desire to understand myself in relation to the patriarchy into which I have been born, I am an avid reader of women’s history, including women’s journals, most notably those of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir, Frida Khalo and Emily Carr. I feel connected to these women through time and am grateful that they have asserted their intelligence and expressed their experience to the world. Through my work I will strengthen my own voice until it sounds out like the voices of the women I emulate and honour.
The most one may hope for is the courage to cast one’s energies into the chaos. There is comfort in the knowledge that any authentic creation is a gift to the future.
artist bio
After leaving a career in counselling and life in big city Vancouver, Laurie reignited her passion for the creative process at the Kootenay School of the Arts in Nelson, B.C. There she learned skills in fashion design, illustration and construction from Angelika Werth and developed a love of the felting process from Maggie Tchir. In order to complete a Fine Arts degree and further develop conceptual and critical thinking skills, Laurie transferred to the Alberta College of Art & Design where she earned a BFA (Fibre) with distinction in 2005.
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