TAPPEN, BC Six of us went to my friend’s sheep farm in Tappen, BC. City girls horrified at all the poop and not used to animals. By the end we were old hands, sort of. At least we were not scared anymore! The mornings were started off with coffee and art books on the porch with lots of art talk. We created a mural on the side of Dev’s house and small shed. None of us had painted a mural before. We also each brought a project to teach each other. I taught small collages inside slide frames. My favourite was Dori teaching us ceramics in her small portable kiln. We also cooked for Dev and created some lovely meals together. In the evening we watched AB FAB on tv and roared with laughter.

AMSTERDAM: moved to Holland for 6 months to meet artists, see art, collaborate with artists and challenge myself to create in another medium. I chose fabric and created a body of work consisting of 10 pieces called Ceremonial Blankets. This process opened up a whole new way of working and also just the collecting of materials took me to places I would not normally go. Flea markets for buttons and fabric, fabric stores for material, thread and ribbon. The library for research. At the end of the residency I had a show at the gallery NP40.
My take-away from this is that the length of time certainly influenced how I worked. Immersed in the Dutch culture helped me see art in a different way whether it was performance, music or visual. The types of venues that I saw art in was super exciting. Abandoned industrial buildings, car park structures, boats and parks. Almost every town, big or small has an amazing gallery. Some of these are city galleries but a lot of them are funded and maintained by private owners with exceptional collections. Transportation plays an important feature in looking at art in this country. There is something about putting your bike on a train, arriving at a small town and riding through the countryside or beautiful town to arrive at a spectacular art gallery. Visiting artist’s studios was incredible and so inspiring. Musicians with full size pianos on their canal boats, converted schools, travelling art trucks, industrial buildings of all sizes, an apartment with a collapsing stage for performance art, shipping containers as studios and when you cut out the side and put in a window it is a 24 hour gallery which I had a piece in.
NDSM Wharf, a former shipyard is a special place you get to across from Amsterdam on a free ferry. It hosts artists studios and outdoor spaces for large work, restaurants and bars and all have their own twists. Shipping containers in a circle with a sand beach in the middle with inviting beach furniture to sip on your cocktail. They also have a large area designated to murals. We went one day and engaged with a couple artists. They told us about their choice of tag, image and also about the hierarchy of the graffiti world. Some walls you don’t paint over and others no problem.
Our artist friends Rob and Rina introduced us to so many artists and galleries and thank them from the bottom of our hearts.

LASQUETI ISLAND: five of us went to the island that one of the gals had a small cabin on and her mother had a bigger house which she let us stay in. We spread out and started making art and again teaching each other small lessons like drawing shadows and making art on the sea from driftwood and rocks.

CHRISTINA LAKE: I worked on a collaboration with Rocio Graham at Santa Rosa Arts and Healing. This residency involved 3 artists working on a 7’ sculpture that will be the welcome piece Grand Forks Gallery in August/September called Growing Roots from Shared Dreams by Rocio Graham. The sculpture is in 5 sections and is related to our identities as Canadians. Rocio’s piece reflects on her experiences as a Mexican immigrant, Victoria’s as a first nation Canadian and my piece as a citizen of European settlers. The bottom is the beginning of time and the natural world and the top is the celebration of life. I listened to their stories of sadness and happiness and made me appreciate this wonderful country of ours.
I did do a bit of work on my own in my little camper that artists get to stay in. Collage studies and mono printing on cloth and paper. As a bonus I also got to learn some Mexican cooking from Lupita, Rocio’s mom who was visiting from a small town in Mexico. YUM!

GABRIOLA ISLAND: My friend Tony Grove who is a shipwright boat builder and a painter hosted myself and my artist friend Sabrina from San Francisco. We had no plan except to fill boxes with art supplies and get to it. We made mono prints from plants. I had also done some in Christina Lake and interesting to see differences and similarities. Small collage studies were on the menu to teach us scale and colour. This will result in a reference sketch book I can refer to in the future. I did create a larger collage to add to my studies box from these small ones. I brought with me a 9’ rolled journal which we dove into with mono prints. This will go to other residencies. We also got an invitation to my Aunt Sonja’s lovely log home for dinner. Her and her husband Richard built this with part of the design being a second-floor library to hold their 10,000+ books. The floor had to reinforced to hold the weight of books and cases. It is a beautiful place for them to work (she also does calligraphy and sends us a New Years’ message every year). We ate dinner out on their pergola hanging on the cliff at the edge of the sea. Their home is surrounded by all manner of flowers, trees, vines and food in their various gardens. Sonja lent us a book of poetry by a collage artist and we took one of the poems for inspiration.
Tony arranged two visits for us…one to the most amazing bakery ever! Right across the street. And his neighbour Doug who is a creator of whimsical art from salvaged metal, driftwood, shells, etc. He was working on a 12’ metal deer!

VICTORIA, BC: After Gabriola we headed down to work in Michelle Sirois-Silver’s textile studio which is in Oak Bay just a short walk to the sea. I love this section of the coast with the wild rocks and ocean. We started off with Michelle showing us various techniques and studies she has done from various workshops she has taken. Michelle does not just scribble in a sketchbook. She goes deep. Researching and practicing and repeat. She showed us one exercise called the Expanded Squares that she has been exploring for 10 years. I have to say that was a hard one for me to wrap my head around but I managed to make a couple. I had prepped 4 banners at Tony’s with some paint and I added the hand stitching at Michelle’s. Both gals added to the 9’ journal with mono prints and hand stitching. We would start the mornings off with coffee, toast, yogurt and fruit on their new deck. Jerry, her jazz guitarist husband made us an amazing salmon dinner with fresh potatoes harvested by Sabrina in their garden. My head was spinning from so much great art talk about residencies, the art world, listening to podcasts about art, checking out other artists online and on and on.
My friend Dale Roberts hosted us for a studio visit at his new studio in downtown Victoria. He is a felter and an assemblage artist. His portraits of celebs and drag-queens are so incredible. We thought he had used some paint but it was all done by blending wool colours and felting. His assemblages are jam packed with stories and history. Lots of them made inside suitcases. There was a 10 foot book made out of distressed plywood. He also runs a program called MailArt and gets art from all over the world that is displayed for a show in his studio. We then headed over to Merrick Gallery where we met Joe the owner and had a wonderful private tour of his artists and his own history in the world of art administrating. Michelle was taken with a drawing by one of his artists and that went home with her. The last morning had us madly trying to finish our projects. Sabrina finished her piece for the journal and sewed in on. Michelle was working on a soft sculpture fabric square that might make it on a piece of clothing. I finished two of my banners. We then headed off home still chatting art.