early work - my soldiers

During my final year in the Material Art and Design program at OCAD (ontario college of art and design) I made a series of work titled: My Soldiers.  I was concerned with my actions as a consumer and how my lifestyle contributed to war-making and military actions around the world.  I was also influenced by Gulliver's Travels and the symbolism of size. 
The following quilts are approx. 8 feet long.  I used bleach to draw the main figure and machine embroidery to stitch the swirling soldiers into the quilts.

During my final show at school, along with the quilts, I showed 2 stuffed soldiers which were almost 7 feet tall.  They were meant to resemble both pillows and punching bags.  The drawings of the soldiers were done with machine embroidery.  (i do machine embroidery with a standard sewing machine and push the fabric by hand to guide the stitching where i want it to go.)

This is a detail of the hand and gun of the soldier on the left.

Immediately following school I was a participant at the 2006 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition.  I made some smaller work to display along with my thesis work.  I had become so saddened by the reasoning behind my work that I began to dream of a world using soldiers and weaponry as tools of love.  I wanted soldiers to love and make love.  I wanted their guns to blow bubbles, grow flowers and give out love.  I became obsessed with the idea

For the following year I was very much in love with flourescents and bright colours.   I made this work  to show at Harbourfront Centre.  It was meant to be a smaller version of my 7 feet tall soldiers.  These guys are only about 12 inches tall.

I wanted to see how dedicated I could be to the repetition of machine embroidery.  The following work is 36" x 36" and is entirely machine embroidered.  I had been watching the Beatles Yellow Submarine and was enthralled with the use of flat colour filling in a black outline.  I wanted to try and use that in my work.

Eventually I grew completely disenchanted with my dream and began to realize that soldiers in war had a better chance of dying than filling the world with peace and love.  I went on to create my Eyelet Casualties Series.