Cindy Watson

Having learned embroidery and other handcrafts as a child, I also developed a love of painting and quilt-making as an adult. These passions are now combined in watercolour, acrylic ink, and stitched collages, as well as the re-imagining of traditional patchwork, as I explore my responses to the natural environment and life events. Through a process I call Chaos, Order, Connection and Meaning, I use acrylic inks, watercolour and collage techniques, drawing on my experience as a quilter and embroiderer, to create painted and sewn collages. Often starting with washes and splashes of uncontrolled colour on large sheets of paper, I explore my connection to the world around me, taking inspiration from the natural world, and use this as a metaphor for my personal psychological landscape. I bring together different painted papers using connective dots and lines, and then create further cohesion/connection with stitching to form a larger picture. The idea of multiple narratives and perspectives is expressed through the layering and overlapping of materials. This reflects the human enterprise of meaning-making where many parts of our lives come together to create a sense of wholeness.