It took a trip to the dump to inspire me. I was in good company, with other artists who were eager to explore the possibilities at the highly praised Deer Isle dump. Initially, it looked like any old dump, and believe me I have scavenged through a number of them . I picked up a bicycle seat that reminded me of a bird, and knew I was on to something, then Lara said Hey Kris there's a pile of bones over here you might be interested in. How do people know that I might be interested in a pile of bones? But what a pile. It seemed to be a dump of deer carcases, hunted, skinned, butchered, then dumped with heads and feet still attached. An extraordinary pile of ribcages. Yep, I was interested. But also a bit uncomfortable; the ground was squishy and there was flesh still attached here and there. I knew that I really needed wellies, gloves, a respirator, and some thick black bags, especially if I was going to try to bring anything back in the car with 4 other people in it. So I grabbed a skull and a pelvis, found a bunch of plastic bags to cover them in, and bought some ammonia on the way home. Word got around that I was boiling bones down in the dye studio.
It all began to come together, with the quillwork and my dryer lint "felt", and the additional inspiration from a book of Innuit shaman masks that I found in the Haystack library.
It all began to come together, with the quillwork and my dryer lint "felt", and the additional inspiration from a book of Innuit shaman masks that I found in the Haystack library.