Anna VanDelman reports:
Once again Guild members had to embrace a dark and windy rainy/snowy drive to Temple Sinai, and it was well worth the effort. Anne Marie Desaulnier’s work is entirely breath taking! It is an excellent example of an intuitive approach to art-making that reveals the maker.
Anne Marie with her work
Anne Marie has a passion for techniques and a love of fabric, paper, beads, recycling and found objects. Many of us recalled her last presentation to us which left a deep impression. She is a self taught artist who credits her current direction to a combination of early exposure to fabrics as a child, school art classes, books and the internet. Robin Atkins’ on-line bead journal project continues to play a role in her life. Anne Marie is a curious, intuitive fibre artist with a serious magpie mentality who excels in the blending of techniques and materials. Serendipity, colour, nature, family, friends and visual journaling are the threads that tie her work together.
Fibrella
Anne Marie’s soft fibre arts doll “Fibrella” caught our attention as we walked into the room. And we were caught up in the amazing pieces of beaded work in fibre stitchery she had on display for us. Her dedication to journaling is special as she says it helps to put her into a piece by exploring what’s going on in one’s life and family. While working on a textile memorial to her late brother she became obsessed with beading and she showed many magnificent examples of her work. Among her other explorations, Anne Marie has experimented with three dimensional beaded forms (requiring curved needles and lots of patience) and fibre bowls formed on balloons using wallpaper paste.
In the second half of the evening, as Rikki Blitt generously emptied her beading collection onto the workshop tables, Anne Marie came round to each table to demonstrate and help us with several bead stitches. In addition to beads, Anne Marie uses everything possible in her work: buttons, jewellery, leaves, odd ends of jewellery, glass, doll faces out of paper clay, found objects – among many others.
Textile Self-portrait
Anne Marie showed us several examples of beaded textile self-portraits that formed the impetus for our upcoming 2015 challenge. It was an amazing evening that encouraged us all to continue to work on our beaded samples and to learn from Anne Marie’s philosophy: ALLOW YOURSELF TO PLAY.
For more textile portraits, see this Pinterest board, or do a web search for “textile self-portraits. http://www.pinterest.com/dianey1/textile-portraits/
Thanks to Reesa Wasser for photos, and Anne Marie Desaulniers for permission to share her work!
On Tuesday January 20 Pomegranate Guild member Barb Goldstein led the members of Hadassah – Hatikvah chapter of Thornhill in a bracelet felting session. Colourful fleece, some soapy water, and Barb’s engaging instruction left participants with beautiful bracelets to take home. Melanie Siegel and Karen Chisvin attended to help with set up and chat about the other activities of the Pomegranate Guild, welcoming all participants of the evening to become guests or new members of the Guild.
Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Textiles Toronto 