Textiles have been part of my art practice for more than four decades. But I have been inordinately interested in fabrics, sewing and clothing since childhood.

I was hyper aware of the feel of fabrics from a very young age. I remember being stuffed into snow pants and listening to the swoosh swoosh sound as I walked. I remember the pleasantly crunchy texture of smocking and the soft drape of Melton cloth. When I was 12, my mom bought me a dress made of wool. It was uncomfortably itchy, but it was so beautiful I tried to put up with the way it felt.

I learned to sew early by making Barbie doll clothes. By the time I was a teenager, I was a good seamstress.

The first time I used the craft of sewing in my art practice was to make “sewn paintings.” In these works I prepared the linen or cotton canvas by repeatedly stitching it with thread or string lines, before I painted over them.

I made Cover/Undercover in response to the exhibition Pieced Quilts of Ontario. I had myself photographed in all the clothes I had made for myself, revealing an early propensity for systems, and then I made each, in miniature, in the original fabric.

At the time, I did not consider Cover/Undercover to belong in the category of “art”. In my first exhibition of work on the subject of identity and clothing, which included life size drawings and painted plywood clothing shapes, at the artist-run Stride Gallery in Calgary, I did not plan to exhibit the quilt. It was only at the insistence of one of the directors, Mary Scott, that the work was included. Mary’s encouragement is one of the gifts in my life.