slow cloth and salmon
Thank you for coming here for this quiet little conversation...creating a space for peace, grace and serenity with words, thoughts and images.
As always I am thankful to be living and working on the ancestral & unceded territories of the hən̓̓qəmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples, and I honour the grace, courage and perseverance of Indigenous Peoples.
While I worked stitching thread by hand on the vivid blue painting pictured below, my awareness went to some of the inlets and waterways I visited in my early teen years. Back then these places were so remote. In the decades since then, these pristine waters have been used by industries such as open net Atlantic salmon fish farms, causing massive health issues for the native species of salmon, as well as other species such as prawns. I have been following the work of a singularly dedicated and committed scientist, Alexandra Morton, who has worked together with Indigenous communities to have some of these fish farms removed. Already, in only 1 year, a significant improvement in the health of juvenile salmon has been quantitatively measured. I would love for you to watch Alexandra's fascinating Ted talk about what people can learn about how to live on this planet here:
If nothing else, watch it for the stunning beauty of the wild coastal areas, the whales and Alexandra's gentle and compelling story.
quiet moments in the studio this week...threads...cloth...and quiet contemplations...blue threads the imaginings of ripples teased from the sea by a sweet summer breeze
details of ‘sanctuary in blue (beaches #17)’ - cloth, dye, thread
while i work on the finishing stages of the first four juxtapositions paintings, i'd like to share with you a few images of 'refuge' from the passageways body of work
may the soft sweet palette of warm greys, pale greens and rusty reds envelope you...
i'd love to hear how this painting impacts you - feel free to email me here and tell me how it made you feel, what memories it touched for you...
‘refuge (passageways #4)’, 2018
cloth, dye, thread mounted on custom fabricated metal
17” x 17” x 2”
until next time,
Mardell