• AMANDA MCCAVOUR SHED STUDIO MAY 2025
  SUSPENDED PRAIRIE:
  EMBROIDERY - MEMORY - LANDSCAPE
  Exhibition Statement: Selected work from the Chazen Museum Installation
  These selected textile works are based on herbarium specimens of flowers foundin Ontario- Goldenrod, English Asters, New Jersey Tea and Milkweed. I am
  interested in finding connections between scientific research and decorative
  patterns found in textiles and wallpaper and in drawing attention to the local
  flora around us. In this work, small plants are rendered monumental, creating a
  dream-like environment.
• 
  Statement about the Chazen Museum Installation:
  My site-specific installation Ode to a Prairie was inspired by a visit to the University of Wisconsin–Madison in summer 2019. While on campus to meet with Chazen staff and view the Chazen’s collection, I visited the Wisconsin
  State Herbarium (a repository for preserved botanical collections) and the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection. In the small room beside Paige Court are objects I selected from all three collections, alongside the sketches and
  studies I made in the process of planning my large-scale installation.
  I am interested in finding connections between scientific research and decorative patterns found in textiles and wallpaper. The examples of lace on view here demonstrate the embroidery technique that I uses in my artwork. I
  based Ode to a Prairie on pressed flowers indigenous to the Wisconsin Prairie that I viewed at the Herbarium. First, I created embroideries at the same size of the original specimen. My lace-like pieces of embroidery are made by
  sewing into fabric that dissolves in water. Prior to dissolving, I build up forms through stitched lines and crossing threads. When the fabric is then dissolved, the thread drawings interlock together even without a base. Plants and
  their ecologies are similarly linked—a biological network is a bound system that sustains a community of plants. To create the hanging panels, I scanned the embroideries at a high resolution, scaled them to a monumental size, and
  printed them on sheer polyester fabric. I burned away the remaining polyester to the borders of the image, disrupting the surface and creating organic contours that follow the edges of the prints. Last, I adhered the printed
  fabric to a sheer mesh with a heated iron. This final step of pressing the prints with an iron mimicked the way that the original flowers were pressed and preserved in the Herbarium’s collection. With my site-specific installation Ode to a Prairie, I reimagine the Chazen’s Paige Court as a field of floating
  flowers, blending fantasy and document, imagination and observation.The installation shifts the perspective of a traditional prairie, inviting viewers to view - a floating field of flowers. Based on the Wisconsin prairie, this work
  explores plants as markers of memory and place. Indigenous species that I reference include goldenrod and milkweed. I am interested in the recent movement to restore Wisconsin’s prairie environment, almost completely
  destroyed by decades of farming. My installation both looks back to the past and toward an idealized future of what might be.
  In Ode to a Prairie, small plants are rendered monumental, creating a dream-like environment. I have designed this installation with oppositions in mind: transparency versus opacity, intricate detail versus large forms, organic versus
  constructed. The fabric panels that hang emphasize the verticality of the space and the way that air moves through the man-made interior, as the panels twist and turn like flowers swaying in a summer’s breeze.
• 
  About the artist:
  Amanda McCavour creates thread drawings and immersive installations. Her work speaks to themes of memory, environment, colour and line. McCavour received a Master of Fine Arts in Fibers and Material Studies from Tyler
  School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia in 2014 and completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University in 2007, where she studied Visual Art. She has exhibited work nationally and internationally and has
  participated in residencies at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto (ON), The Klondike Institute of Art and Culture in Dawson City (YK), and La Maison des métiers d'art de Québec (QC).
  

Upcoming Events in the SHED Studio

May 23-June 6 – Exhibition “Suspended Prairie”Amanda McCavour

May 24/25 WORKSHOP – Extraordinary Embroidery with Amanda McCavour

June 12-26 – POP-UP – Critter Co. Illustrator Rachel Dyck

July 5-21 – POP-UP – County Workhouse

August 1 -17 – Open Studio – Alchemy 2025

August 21-September 7 – Exhibition “Colour Fields”

September 6 – WORKSHOP – Punch Hooking with Renee Lortie

September 7 – WORKSHOP  – Rug Hooking with Bear Epp

September 15 – 30 – EXHIBITION Andrea Piller & Megan Fitzgerald

October 4/5 – WORKSHOP & POP-UP Mackenzie Browning Paper & Book Arts

October 18 – WORKSHOP & POP-UP Ana Falceta Painting with Embroidery

November 8/9 – WORKSHOP & POP-UP Jill Price, Paper Making

November 14-December 22 POP-UP Holiday Ornaments & Wreaths