Shasta McCoy, a fiber artist and landscape artist from Golden, B.C., will be presenting her gallery entitled “OTHERWooLD” at Centre 64 from Aug. 24 to Sept. 20.

McCoy uses wool as a medium in her sculptural and visual art, something that goes all the way back to raising sheep as a child.

“My present interest is in archetypes and cycles observed earth-based spiritual traditions and in interpreting these concepts through immersive textural and ephemeral experience,” McCoy said. “I regard the artworks in this exhibition as lyrics in a love song to wildness and place.

“Since learning to knit, I have been seduced by the possibilities presented by wool. My leap from using wool to build durable felted creatures and yoga props to using wool as a visual and sculptural medium has opened a new dimension to my process: from functional to symbolism and storytelling.”

McCoy uses the term “woolscapes” to describe her collection, which is made up of weavings, abstract embroidery felting and macrame. She imagines the wool as landforms or as signifying a “place that is scaled in such a way that we may absorb it in a singular regarding.”

“Each woolscape is also a binding of an intention: with twists, knots, tangles and plots encoding a narrative. Found natural objects in the woolscapes are held in tension with fiber affording these objects an elevated position, often with no permanent attachment to the fibers. This opens the possibility that a person may one day add to or change the story.

“I find deep hope in the stories that all people once spoke the language of the animals. Reaching out to my animal relations in my sculptures of needle-felted wool creature, I am always fascinated at how each animal emerges from a disorderly entanglement of fibers: entropy becoming the foundation of order.”

Kimberley Arts Council-Centre 64 administrative assistant John Stafford said this new gallery may be its “most exciting of the year.”

paul.rodgers@kimberleybulletin
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