ART AS ADVOCACY
EXHIBITION AT THE SHELBURNE MUSEUM
MAY 11 - OCT 20, 2024
STEWARDING A SEED COLLECTION:
PORTRAITS IN WOOL
BY LORNA MCMASTER
“Contemporary fiber artist Lorna McMaster creates portraits and landscapes in felted wool that call attention to the artist’s commitment to seed saving as an act of environmental stewardship. For the coming season, a collection of McMaster’s compositions will be featured in The Dana-Spencer Textile Gallery at Hat and Fragrance.
The wool for her works comes from sheep raised organically and shorn on her farm on Prince Edward Island, Canada. McMaster has spent decades working and teaching in multiple disciplines of fiber arts and seed saving. During the pandemic, she started Heartfelt Seed to educate others about seed saving through the arts.
McMaster’s felted portraits aim to raise awareness about the ways humans, animals, and plants can adapt and live symbiotically as part of a global community.”
- Katie Wood Kirchhoff, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen Curator of American Decorative Arts, Shelburne Museum.
WEBINAR:
ART & ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP
CLICK ABOVE TO VIEW
Fiber artist Lorna McMaster chats with Katie Wood Kirchhoff, the Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen Curator of American Decorative Arts, about felting, seed saving, and sustainable practices in the arts and agriculture.
DID YOU KNOW?
In the last 50 years, we have lost 93% of the diversity of our open pollinated food plants, worldwide, due to the privatization of the seed industry by corporations who seek to control the genetic resources that underlie our food supply. Our goal is to encourage people to save our living treasures by exercising and protecting our right to save seed. This is a time when the stewardship of a few can make a difference to the future of many.
— Lorna McMaster
Meet Lorna McMaster
ARTIST, EDUCATOR, FARMER & ADVOCATE
Believing art can speak louder than words, I spent the winter of 2022-23 creating a collection of needle felted panels from wool I had saved from my beloved sheep. My goal was to portray some of my favorite seed projects in an effort to raise awareness and encourage people to do what they can to save our living treasures, our heirloom open pollinated seeds. In this fragile world, it is important to realize that we can still take responsibility for our food security.