Driftwood, my grandmother’s linen table runner dyed with beach rust & beach wood, jute, marine thread.
In 1899, my grandmother crossed the sea at age 15, from Ukraine to Montreal. She forever left behind her homeland, family and familiarity for supposed safety and a brand new life. Three years later she married, bore 4 sons, and died from TB at age 35. This boat represents hopes for safe passage for all the women who have made similar journeys.
She Crossed the Sea (Loss Series) detail
Richard’s Ribcages . . . then and now (1991, reworked 2024) (Loss Series)
Handmade paper, alder wood, cotton sheet, wire.
After my friend Richard died with AIDS, I created 2 ribcage pieces in handmade paper to honour his ravaged body. For a recent exhibition theme of ‘Palimpsest’, I reworked the original pieces by typing a letter to him on cotton bedsheets about AIDS, our friendship, and life on this planet since he died. Working this cloth into the darker ragged ribcage, some words are legible, others obscured. A beeswax coating softens my words and preserves the friendship. Text describing Richard’s identity on the smaller ribcage attempts to counteract the erasure that still accompanies AIDS, death, and the passage of time.
Richard’s Ribcages . . . then and now (another angle)
Housing: Out of Reach 2024
Rust printed cotton fabric is wrapped around iris seed pods, and mounted on Vancouver Island yellow cedar. Impressions about where the unhoused find places to sleep are typed on onionskin paper to form the roof.
Housing: Out of Reach (detail)
Housing: Out of Reach (detail)
Disappearing Shorelines 2024
Incorporating my shoreline photo (taken on a sandbar reef at Yellow Point Lodge) as inspiration, I created this altered book (“A Lamp in the Darkness” by Jack Kornfield), as a statement about climate change. By shaping and painting wet plaster gauze, in combination with barnacles, my goal was to highlight the shoreline crisis.
Disappearing Shorelines 2024
Tenuous 2024
For the exhibition “Thresholds”, this piece was created in response to the housing crisis in Victoria and elsewhere. I made use of sheer fabric, stitching, and bamboo posts and flooring, on a base of Vancouver Island yellow cedar, painted by Peggy Bell.
Tenuous 2024 (detail)
Vulnerable 2022 and 2024
This piece was revisited for the exhibition “Thresholds” as a statement about the vulnerability of housing for folks in Victoria and beyond. Created from sticks, gauze, copper wire and screen, plaster gauze, fleece and thread.
Vulnerable 2024 (detail)
Margo Farr 