In this fragile world, it is important to realize that we can still take responsibility for our food security. 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
Fiber art has always been an important part of my life. Like many young girls, I learned how to thread a needle about the same age I learned to hold a pencil. My grandmother taught me to knit, and my mother taught me to sew. She taught me, ‘Never sew with cheap cloth, and don’t waste your time knitting with anything but wool.’ As a young adult, I explored production craft opportunities in quilting, spinning, hooking and weaving. I learned how to felt around the same time that I started raising sheep, and I knew I had found my medium at last.
For 25 years, I raised sheep for their special curly wool, an essential component of my fiber art. I loved everything about shepherding; lambing, dog training, blade shearing, processing and dyeing wool, teaching fiber workshops, and making fiber art. As homesteaders, we also planted large organic gardens, and sold our wares at local farmer’s markets. I was always a seed saver, but in 2013, I learned that heirloom, open pollinated garden seeds were going extinct faster than wildlife, due to the privatization of the seed industry by corporations who seek to control the genetic resources that underlie our food supply. Since that time, our farming efforts turned from sheep to seed growing, and the development of a Seed Sanctuary on Prince Edward Island where we currently grow a variety of open-pollinated seeds and wildlife support permaculture gardens.
Believing that art can speak louder than words, I spent the winter of 22-23 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. With these scenes in my mind as illustrations, I wrote Zoe and the Seed Garden, which follows the journey of a young girl who learns the steps to becoming a seed saver.
FEATURED ARTICLES
READ MORE ABOUT LORNA’S WORK AND SEED SAVING EFFORTS