A former weaver, award-winning landscape designer, and ever-evolving artist, Sheree Rasmussen started working with fabric collage over fifteen years ago. Today, Sheree creates bold, energetic wall hangings that are like abstract art gardens. Originally from Toronto, Ontario, Sheree now lives in Northumberland County near the artists’ community of Warkworth where she continues to draw inspiration from her natural surroundings.
I spoke with Sheree from her studio gallery.
Michale Raske: There are so many different pieces of fabric in your work. Can you walk us through your process?
Sheree Rasmussen: Sure. I don’t like planning; it’s not my nature, and there’s no technique really. I didn’t study it as a craft; it’s the opposite of the very technical, very mathematical process when I was a weaver and is very freeing. I have pounds and pounds of fabric that I’ve collected over the years, and that’s been given to me, but I don’t know what I’m going to use until I begin working on a piece.
I start on the floor, cutting and pinning fabric, building up layers, looking at it. I enjoy making large-scale works that are six feet by nine or ten feet [1.8 by 2.7–3 metres], so they don’t fit on a table. Once I’ve pinned the basics, I sew crazy zigzagging all around. Then I hang it up, horizontally, pin some more, sew some more. I think of it as a similar process to an abstract painter; it’s about throwing paint on canvas, like Jackson Pollock, but fabric is the medium I like to work in. I’ve been a dancer all my life, so I improvise with movement and pace, too.
I don’t really want a boundary within which I have to work—part of my process is to be free to go outside the lines as much as I want—so at the end, I do have to figure out how to contain the piece. I always put some kind of backing on it and hand stitch the edges.
Sheree at work in her studio.
All photos courtesy Sheree Rasmussen.
