Beading
Artist Profile – Marie-Renée Otis
Dec
Marie-Renée Otis: TAPISSERIE À L’AIGUILLE
the beginning
When I started to embroider, I didn’t have any guidelines. Imagination and creativity were my most important tools. I applied them freely. Early on, I blended metallic yarns to stranded cotton and added beads to the background of my embroidery to ‘light things up’ and give a sense of richness and opulence to my designs. It doesn’t take much to achieve that goal: sew three or four beads on a woman’s head and right away she looks like a Queen!
Any beads, real pearls, Rocailles, Swarovski, tubes, Japanese’s beads, glass beads, Millefiori, are in essence little balls of lights and translucence. Their size, beauty, and sparkle add light and texture to any form of embroidery. It is this beauty that first caught my eye.
inspiration
My source of inspiration is two-fold. Any embroidery starts from a design, a drawing. When I draw without a specific purpose, the unconscious expresses itself. I can easily recognize elements of my personal life; for instance, the mountains of Charlevoix where I live, my mother and sisters. But then, the personal unconscious meets the collective unconscious which result in the finished piece is really the great archetype of the mother earth. The unconscious is one endless source of inspiration.
Read more in our Festive 2013 issue.
Marie-Renée Otis
418.435.3433
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