Member Profile - Heidi Wulfraat, Lakeburn, New Brunswick

We would like to welcome Heidi Wulfraat, our newest member of SAQA Atlantic! We asked Heidi to introduce herself, so in her words...

For me, coming to work in fibre arts has been a happy marriage of my academic studies in Animal sciences and my early exposure to visual arts.

I grew up roaming the great expanse that was my father’s photography studio. His business occupied the basement level of a huge brick building on Monkland Avenue in Montreal. While my father staged backdrops, lighting and composition, my mother helped with administrative details in the office. Quite literally, I spent all of my preschool days absorbing the open space, the creative air and the entrepreneurial work ethic that played out in front of me.

Home was on the West Island of Montreal, seemingly far from the fast paced inner core. The then rural edge of suburbia provided the great outdoors, gardens and animals, animals, animals. Cats always, dogs often, a never-ending parade of orphaned birds, as well as rabbits, frogs, salamanders, and so on.

Textiles were prevalent as well. With a European heritage, my brothers, my sister and I were all trained in needle tapestry. All the while my live-in grandmother was occupied in the creation of extraordinary embroidery work from which she had once made a living, providing for herself and her children upon arrival in Canada.

This was the formative mix that eventually led to London-Wul Fibre Arts. Fibre production allowed to me to raise animals in a no-kill, no-sell environment, fed my appetite for textiles and provided me the opportunity to once again spend my days in a studio. My studio!

I have worked in hand dyeing, spinning, felting, and knitting for many years. I have doodled and sketched and painted always. More recently, I have been drawn to quilting in quest of a more graphic textile medium. Without background, I leapt into quilting via the City and Guilds of London under the tutelage of Laura Kemshall. This was a singular experience for me, a new path. 

At present much of my quilted work is experimental. All incorporates very personal elements, some evident and others more elusive. 

My life and work are guided by nature.

“Escape” - Hand drawing as well as photo transfer. Hand and machine stitching.

“Factory Girls” - Image transfer, piecing, applique, machine stitching

                                     “Carnival” - Whole cloth, hand painted, applique, free motion

“Carnival” - detail