Colleen Peters, Artist at Play, loves to work with her hands, to focus her attention on something very visible, and to see the development of her art as she works, which she reports is good for her mental health. Colleen works in many mediums: weaving, knitting, crocheting, photography, painting, drawing, poetry, and song, letter, and journal writing.
For the inaugural Basic Income arts collective project, Colleen’s main art piece is a weaving. She made her own weaving frame from the stretcher frame of a canvas. She tied green, hand-dyed, hand-spun yarn to the weaving frame. The flowers are made from yellow, raw sheep’s wool, and the weaving around the flowers is in a baby blue alpaca, which is Colleen’s favourite wool to work with. The only acrylic fibre used on the weaving is the purple yarn near the bottom of the weaving.
Colleen’s weaving process is very organic and reflective. During the making of this weaving, she made many adjustments. The first iteration of the weaving was only one big circular flower in the middle of the frame; when she wasn’t happy with it, she moved it and added two more small flowers. She also tried to use a looser, pressed yarn, which she ended up removing because it was too soft and pulled apart. Colleen enjoys the natural progression of a project like this.
Another piece of art Colleen submitted is a photograph of a rose. She explains that the photo represents the connectedness with others and the harmony within individuals’ lives, which is what she considers life’s goal.
Colleen has also written and submitted a poem for the arts collective. She finds that poetry comes at certain times, and she enjoys the organic feeling and flow of the muse when she is inspired to write.
Collaborative art projects are very motivational for Colleen, and she is always looking for new opportunities to make art with other people.
Colleen has taken art and design and art history classes at Red Deer College, a semi-private group class for watercolour painting, and a variety of classes at Elements including writing and weaving. Her artwork is available for sale. Visit her website artistatplay.ca for more information.