Delicate shawls, decorative tapestries and beautiful handwoven blankets and pillows were put on display at The Arts Station last Thursday night as part of the Fernie Spinners and Weavers Guild Wearable Art Exhibition.
Seattle-based fibre artist Anita Luvera Mayer led Fernie’s weavers on an informative workshop, resulting in the beautiful wearable display last week.
“We’re a really large and active group, we’ve got members all the way from Alberta to Rossland and Invermere,” said Arts Station Administrative Assistant Becca Musso. “We do a lot of felting and surface designing and dying and all sorts of fiber arts,” said Musso of the work displayed by artists from the Spinners & Weavers Guild.
One weaver, Rebecca Vaughan, contributed some truly unique mounted wall art to the group. An intricate lions head, a rabbit wearing a headdress and an owl atop another rabbit head were some of her contributions.
Self-taught, Vaughan said that each piece took her approximately 40 hours to create. Each piece combined two techniques of felting — wet and dry — to create contrast between the faces of each animal and the colourful backdrops they were set against.
Fernie Forge blacksmith Sandra Barrett also had pieces to contribute, that blended her felt and weaving abilities with her pre-forged talents with metalwork. One piece, a coat, was decorated with hand-dyed felt taken from the alpacal’s that she keeps on her property and some signature forgework embellishments and details like toggles on the coat to contrast with the softness of the felt.
The guild meets at least once a month and new members are always welcome if they are already a member of the Arts Station.