Laurie O'Shaughnessy - Textile Artist

Everything I do starts with a drawing or sketch; this was my first love when I was very young. I am truly a mixed-media artist as I explore different materials and techniques in my work: appliqué, home-made textiles, painting,  beading, stencilling and printing. The one constant in all these pieces, however, is hand stitching. 

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I can't remember when I learned to embroider; I was so young. What I do remember is watching my mother sew. Being a farm wife, she sewed and mended all kinds of practical things. My greatest delight, however, was when she took precious time to embroider. I distinctly remember pillow cases with little violet flowers. 

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I think I inherited a love of colour from my mother; she painted our house purple when I was a kid, a daring thing to do in rural Alberta in the 1970s. 

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My  mother  was  a  product  of the time in which she lived: like most women she became a young wife and subsequently a mother. Later in life, she went out to work to support us kids and was effectively a single parent much of the time. She used to say that her generation was caught in the middle: her mother did as her father said, her daughters could feel equal to their male counterparts, while women of her age could do neither comfortably. I think my feminism comes from my mom, watching her as she navigated rural life as a woman, but one who worked outside the home and effectively provided a future for her children, most of whom were daughters. 

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