Drawing with Thread Workshop

I was excited to take the Drawing with Thread workshop taught by my friend Amanda Wood at Collage Collage last weekend. She is a textile artist working in weaving and stitching, and I was curious to see what I could take away to apply to my recent stitch and embroidery explorations.

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Collage supplies at Collage Collage

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Linen painting with fabric paint

We started things off with a warm up exercise working with collage and colour, and then transitioned into our stitching projects by creating a base to work with. Using fabric inks we painted pieces of linen, and I chose crazy bright colours. I am not a good painter, and was not happy where I ended up with the painted surface but I wasn’t going to worry about it in a workshop where I’m suppose to play and explore.

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Amanda brought piles of beautiful thread for us to use, and it became really hard to choose colours to work with. She did a quick demo of different types of stitches to try and then gave us time to work. I did a bunch of french knots as a warm up, and then explored the seed stitch. It is now a new favourite of mine.

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Stitching demo by Amanda Wood

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The piece above is what I was able to accomplish by the end of class. I like the piece so much more than I thought I would because of the mark making of the stitches. I plan to work on this a bit more over time and see where it ends up.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

As the guiding principle for what I wanted to express in my artist talk last weekend for the Talking Art speaker series I posed the question, “What are the stories you tell yourself?”.

There are stories we tell ourselves about what we can and cannot do, and these are the things that keep us from reaching our full potential. For the longest time I thought I wasn’t capable of creative work other than photography. When I gave myself permission to step outside of the little box I’d put myself into it’s led me to be good at many things I had wrongly assumed I could never do.


The key for me has been learning by doing. If I want to know how to do something or understand a material or process, then I go figure it out. This means doing hands-on research, reading books, looking at information on the internet, talking with other artists, or taking a workshop. But it’s all centred around exploring with my hands that thing I want to know. Explore, experiment, and learn. Making leads to more making because all of our skills are interconnected.

Paper cutting opened the doors to other process for me because it refined my fine motor skills. For years I’d told myself the story that I couldn’t draw, but paper cutting helped me relearn the ability. I’ve always wanted to learn needle work and embroidery, and told myself the story that it was beyond me. But here I am finally learning those things I’ve long wanted to know and creating beautiful work in the process.

We are all capable of so much more than we allow ourselves to believe. It’s up to us to change the story we tell ourselves. Maybe the time has come to tell yourself a new one.

20th Annual Eastside Culture Crawl

It’s wonderful to realize the Eastside Culture Crawl is now in its twentieth year. The event has touched so many lives, connected artists, helped build careers, and inspired visitors. This will be my sixth year as a participating artist, and I’m proud to be a part of this distinguished community event.

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This year I have partnered with the inspiring multi-disciplinary team of Propellor Design and will be a guest artist in their studio. I am thrilled to be invited to show in their space because I am inspired and excited by the work they create. Find us at 1120 East Georgia Street, east of Glen Drive.

Visit my page on the Culture Crawl web site to see a preview of some of the selected work I’ll be showing. I hope to see you here.

Eastside Culture Crawl
November 17th to 20th, 2016
Thurs & Fri 5pm to 10pm | Sat & Sun 11am to 6pm
Address: Propellor Studio, 1120 East Georgia Street

Making Clothing New Again Through Sashiko Stitching

This is an upcycling project I was thinking about all summer and did not have a breakthrough on until two weeks ago, shortly after the French knot obsession began. The piece of clothing is a favourite red coat I bought secondhand over ten years ago, and it has been sitting unworn and in need of repair for the past few years. And then many years passed….

I love this coat too much to simply throw it out, so I’ve had it in mind to get it repaired (and will when the stitching is done). With the advent of sashiko stitching in my life I started thinking about adding a design to the surface, and bought different coloured embroidery threads earlier in the summer with the intention of starting the project. But then I was completely stuck on coming up with a design. I’ve been using a plastic template of concentric arches to draw the lines using a frixion ball point pen, and then adding tiny stitches in blue thread.

Sashiko stitching

I recently completed the first part of the work by adding six of these designs around the coat’s hem. The next phase will be to add more designs around the sleeves, and maybe the pockets. It looks so good!

Sashiko stitching

A video posted by Paper artist (@rachael_ashe) on


I shot a short timelapse video as I worked on the final series of arches around the hem. I wish I could stitch this quickly in real life (but I always think that when I watch a timelapse of my work).

Hot Talks: Eastside Culture Crawl 3rd Edition

Once again I have organized an evening of talks by artists participating in the Eastside Culture Crawl on behalf of Hot Art Wet City.

Hot Art Wet City gallery presents the third annual Hot Talks curated by Rachael Ashe, in partnership with the Eastside Culture Crawl. Join us for an evening of informative and entertaining talks by artists, designers, and craftspeople on Wednesday November 9. The eight speakers represent a selection of the variety of artists participating in the 2016 Culture Crawl. Each speaker will present their work and share the process behind what they do in a short “Show & Tell” style talk.

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The eight speakers are Tristesse Seeliger, Vanessa Lam, Sherri Rogers, Bridget Catchpole, Anyuta Gusakova, Trevor Van den Eijnden, The Hive Printing, and Espiritu Design Studio.

Get your tickets on the Hot Art Wet City website.

Talking Art with The Eastside Culture Crawl

Talking Art is a series of artist talks and conversations to be held in advance of this year’s Eastside Culture Crawl in celebration of its 20th Anniversary. There are four events taking place between October 23th to November 5th, and each will pair two artists exploring a common theme. I’ll be presenting along with Heather Braun-Dahl on Sunday October 30th at 2pm. The full schedule in below.


Sunday, October 23 – 2pm
Material: Britta Fluevog and James Kemp
Britta Fluevog and James Kemp both balance experimental sculpture and installation works with the production of functional wares, each arising through the process of their material practices.

Saturday, October 29 – 2pm
Narrative: Haisla Collins and Richard Tetrault
Haisla Collins and Richard Tetrault are both engaged in individual and community-based works, each informed by strong narratives and realized in brilliant colour.

Sunday, October 30 – 2pm
Abstraction: Rachael Ashe and Heather Braun-Dahl
Rachael Ashe and Heather Braun-Dahl work in different media, but are brought together through form and line, with abstraction as a common ground and understanding.

Saturday, November 5 – 2pm
Place: Marcus Bowcott and Connie Sabo
Marcus Bowcott and Connie Sabo have both addressed place through environmental and social concerns, with intimacy and individuality that nonetheless speaks to the collective.

Talking Art is FREE and will be held at The Arts Factory (281 Industrial Ave). The series is curated by Francesca Szuszkiewicz.

Flight Path / Taking Flight at City Atrium Gallery

Flight Path / Taking Flight is a site specific paper installation I created for a show at the Gladstone Hotel in 2014 (view photos of it here). I am pleased to finally get the opportunity to display it in a local venue at City Atrium gallery in North Vancouver. The full piece is made up of six hundred paper crow wings suspended from wire in clusters, but for this current version I’ve included about half of the original number.

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The sculpture was inspired by my fascination with watching large flocks of crows moving across the evening sky in spring and fall in their daily commute home to their roost in Burnaby. It feels like a rare opportunity to see so many birds together in one place.

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Flight Path / Taking Flight will be on display at City Atrium Gallery until January 9, 2017.

Dates: October 17, 2016 to January 9, 2017
Times: Mon – Fri 8:30am – 5:00pm
Location: North Vancouver City Hall, 141 West 14th Street

French Knot Embroidery in Paper

My experiments in making french knots on paper the other week led to working on a larger and more elaborate piece that I finished in the studio on Monday. I took many photos of my progress as I worked. The consistency of my French knots has seen a huge improvement from those first tentative test pieces.

French knots on paper

French knots on paper

I used pale grey embroidery thread on 90lb 11″ x 14″ Strathmore mixed media paper. I drew lines and concentric circles on the back to guide me and made up the design as I went along.

French knots on paper

I pre-punched the holes with the needle before adding the stitches, as you can see in the photo below.

French knots on paper

French knots on paper

The finished piece is lovely and seems to come across as a mandala, which was not intentional. This is one of a few experimental embroidery pieces I will frame and show during the Eastside Culture Crawl in November.

Window Dressing 2016 at AMP Studio in Strathcona

For the month of October I once again have work on display in the window of AMP studio located at the corner of Hawks and Keefer. For the past year and a half my friend Valerie Arntzen has been hosting a different artist each month in the front window of her studio.

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There are two pieces on display, the tyvek scroll I created in 2015 and a framed paper cut piece called, Kimono.

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The studio is located kitty corner from the Wilder Snail in Strathcona, and the work will be up until the end of October.

Magnificent Sonobe Origami Artwork for the Office

The sonobe origami art commission I’ve been working on for months is finished and hanging in the offices of Steamclock Software. It was custom framed and mounted at Frame of Mind Fine Art & Framing, which is the best place to go when you have weird or awkward pieces of art (like this is) that need framing.

The work brightens up our meeting room/kitchen and also acts as an acoustic panel to dampen noise in an echoey space.

Sonobe origami office art

Sonobe origami office art

The finished piece is 45 inches by 43 inches mounted on foam core, and is made up of 450 to 500 pieces of origami paper. I’m pleased this commission turned out so magnificently well.