Waves: Offering to the Moon

Posted on May 12, 2017

“Waves – Offering to the Moon”

transparent lace sculpture
42 x 36 x 8 cm
driftwood redcedar frame, stainless steel, shell moon

Story of The Waves:
I was looking for frames for a new body of work, and I found Colin Hamilton, an artisan-woodworker, who works with cedar driftwood collected on the beaches of Gulf Islands. He hand splits the logs and builds gates, furniture and art, using traditional joinery techniques. Colin agreed to make some frames for me and I left it up to him to chose size and shape. The frames were beautiful when they arrived – very organic, and like no other frames I used before. They were already art pieces in their own right, and it was not difficult to see how they should be completed with lace. One small frame was asking for waves and I decided to use steel wire, because the Pacific Ocean on the Canadian West Coast often looks like it is made of steel. I couldn’t see though what pattern to use for lace, because all traditional lace designs lacked the fluidity I envisioned. I decided to create my own pattern, but since that takes long time, I put the piece on hold to let the design percolate. By chance, I was contacted by Veronika Irvine, a University of Victoria PhD candidate and a fibre artist, who developed a mathematical model to describe bobbin lace tessellations. From this model she generated thousands of original grid designs. Veronika was looking for lacemakers who would test the new patterns. I tried, and immediately realized that this was exactly what I wished for for my new piece – and much, much more…
I found pattern that flowed like water, made the “Waves” and offered them to the moon. The piece sailed away, spent some time on the Gulf Islands with Colin, then crossed The Strait of Georgia and reached Veronika’s lace collection in Victoria on Vancouver Island.

We regard the “Waves – offering to the Moon” to be a truly West Coast creation, in sync with the ocean waves that connect us. And while we are all busy with our own work, we are open to future collaborations. Colin is working on new frames (thujawoodart.com), Veronika is doing her binary code magic in computer science and lace design (tesselace.com). And I am leaving all the rest to the moon.