I Am YEG Arts: Alma Visscher
August 8, 2024
Whether through her fabric-based installations, soft sculptures, jewelry or drawings, visual artist and educator Alma Louise Visscher is always looking to consider the poetic possibilities of the materials at hand. Through process and materials, she ponders the inexplicable and explores the intersection of material and the unknowable, the ecology of places, and the things that hold, care for, and comfort us. In this week’s I Am YEG Arts story, Alma talks about the natural dyes and repurposed materials that are integral to her practice, recounts the experience of her latest residency in Brooklyn, NY, and sheds some light on her new public art project to be created for the Orange Hub.
Tell us a little bit more about the materials and techniques you work with in your practice.
In my overall practice, I work a lot with fabric, using it as a surface substrate as well as a concept and jumping off point for research, thinking about the history of materials and also how different materials can suggest and hold many things. Like for fabric, it can be tied to the body and touch in memory. I create soft sculptures, paintings, fabric focused installations and collage drawings, and more recently I’ve been prioritizing making sustainable choices with materials and reusing things. I always value a playful approach to experimentation. I start a lot with just seeing what can happen and learning new ways of making and working.
Some of the recent materials and processes that I’ve worked with include small scale lost wax casting – bronze or silver jewelry making processes, silver smithing – and then fermenting and fading materials, handmade paper making, hand sewing and fabric manipulation, and then natural dyeing and ink making. Time is a factor in a lot of the processes I work with, whether it’s how it holds up to time or reacts to time. Like with bronze, it’s ’this very solid, “serious” material, but then I also work with colourants that transform over time or are more ephemeral. And with hand sewing and fabric manipulation, like smocking, there are notions of compression almost like the residue or imprint of the body. While broadly speaking my work can be classified within the realms of abstraction, its still grounded in a concrete material reality.
How did you get into working with natural dyes?
I did a project in 2015 for the Works Art & Design Festival where I worked with indigo. I made a series of flags that had a graduation of blue. That was the first time I worked with indigo as a natural dye process. Part of the concept for the piece was referencing how a scientist from the 1800s developed this key to measuring the blueness of the sky [Editors note: A cyanometer is an instrument for measuring “blueness”, specifically the colour intensity of blue sky. It is attributed to Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and Alexander von Humbold. That was the jumping off point and figuring out how to create a graduation of different hues of blue. And then that same summer I did the Wood Buffalo Municipality Artist in residency in Fort McMurray, where I did some more learning on my own. It was right after the forest fire, so the landscape and the environment was very impacted – it was a fraught, hard time – but where I was staying there was an empty lot with a lot of invasive species. I used a lot of those plant dyes to create a project for that residency. Just experimenting and doing research online really sparked my interest too – and making lots of mistakes! Since then, I’ve taken several courses about dyeing and ink making. One of the first things I experimented with was geraniums, but what I quickly learned is that a lot of the red, purple, and blue flowers and berries that grow in the surrounding ecosystem, the colour comes from anthocyanins, which is very pH sensitive and isn’t a permanent dye. In the natural dye terminology, it’s technically referred to as a stain; it doesn’t actually bond with the fibres or it reacts really quickly to sunlight. Also, as soon as you add anything that has a different pH in it, say like a binder, it will turn a bright blue or a green. But it’s still very temporary and eventually will fade to grey or something very neutral. The other term that is used for this is a “fugitive dye” because it’s this colour for a moment.
I’m interested in playing with that idea of fading and how these things can shift too because some of the materials that I work with are very permanent and some are not. I like that things don’t have to be one way forever and that art doesn’t have to be a static thing either. But then in other projects, I also try to make naturally dyed fabrics as lightfast and permanent as possible.
You recently returned from a residency in Brooklyn at ISCP. Tell us about that experience. Were there any surprising or particularly memorable moments?
It was amazing. I highly recommend applying for the residency! I was at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in Brooklyn, NY for three months (April, May and June). My residency was funded by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and Edmonton Arts Council, which I’m very, very thankful for. It’s a studio program, and there were 30 to 35 different artists/curators from around the world, and they organized studio visits with critics and curators, and then we did field trips and I got to see so many exhibitions. The program is very open; there were only a few things that you were required to do, like open studios, but other than that you set your own research and time. It was a really amazing opportunity to think about my work, work on some new ideas and see exhibitions and shows – I think I saw over 70 different exhibitions!
I find it helpful for my practice to go on residencies as it’s a chance to revisit different ways of working. I really enjoyed the process of finding and getting art supplies. There is New York’s version of the Reuse Centre, the Materials for the Artists (MFTA); it’s this giant warehouse where nonprofits and organizations can come and find anything from like clothing fabric to art supplies. Another one is a nonprofit that works with the fashion industry with their off-cut rolls and excess from the end of seasons. There’s this room full of amazing fabrics. I found a lot of beautiful things to work with, so that was really amazing for my practice.
How do you think this experience is going to influence your artistic practice going forward?
I think there is a little shift in my work every time I’m in a new place. You find you have habits and ways of working that you take with you, but I also want to be able to be responsive and see what different materials I can work with. I came there with a plan and stayed fairly close to it, but I also did some experiments as an opportunity to do something different where I’m not sure exactly about the end result. I’m working more on some pieces referencing jewelry, working with chains while still including fabric, but also thinking about the support structures or like an armature for it too.
Meeting so many other artists, our conversations, all of the shows and exhibitions also have an impact. Thinking back to other residencies, the shift is maybe not perceptible at the moment. We’ll see what happens. I feel so very lucky to have been there and it seems kind of surreal to be back. But it also makes me really appreciate Edmonton and our arts community. It’s smaller but there’s really exciting things going on and everyone’s really supportive of each other.
Tell us about your public art project at the Orange Hub. What drew you to apply for this project?
I wanted to apply for this project because I live in the general area and I was intrigued by the structure of the façade. It’s like this envelope around the parkade of a tightly woven chain link. It really sparked my creative thinking, and I thought it was such an amazing and unique thing to think about and imagine what could be on it. What also drew me to this project was thinking about connections and references to jewelry making and how chain link was originally made on a modified industrial fabric loom and it references the weaving process in how it’s made.
What has the process of concept development and community engagement been like for this project?
At the end of August I’m hosting some community workshops and natural plant ink-making workshops with the wider Orange Hub community for those who live near, work near, or pass by the parkade. I want to explore the memory and colour of the sites and the plants and gardens that make up the spaces and communities around the Orange Hub. The hope is to create a record or marker of the plants and other botanical materials from nearby areas.
In my initial stages, I was doing a lot of drawing, taking photos of the site, and doing drawings over photos of the building to work through different possibilities. This is my first permanent public art piece and it’s exciting to think about its scale.
Have you thought about the materials that you intend to use for the artwork?
I’m still working out the exact details, but aluminum and dibond. Whatever I use will be a lightweight material, aluminum perhaps, with some images that will reference the natural dyes/ink from the site areas. One guiding question that I started with is what could grow up/alongside the parkade? Envisioning plants and thinking of the parkade as this support structure, and thinking about like the site of Orange Hub as a community space. It’s interesting because the Orange Hub used to be a MacEwan campus. There’s both a lot of nostalgia and memories of that place, but it also has so much possibility with all the current things that are happening. It’s a site of growth and support too.
Tell us a little bit about what you’re currently working on or what you’re hoping to explore next.
My main focus is my research and developing for the Orange Hub project. But also finishing up some projects from the residency too.
And then I have been returning to work on this little project – drawings, paper, and some smaller sculptures – about the Creeping Bellflower. I’m doing some casting of the little roots and then making some fading ink from the blue flower. Even though I know everyone hates the Creeping Bellflower – I also have strong feelings about it because I had to dig it up from our alleyway and it’s growing back instantly – but it’s interesting because it’s so permanent but also ephemeral with its flowering, and it’s so fascinating how many emotions it evokes in people.
About Alma Visscher
Alma Louise Visscher is a second-generation white settler, born to Dutch immigrants in Surrey BC. Living in amiskwacîwâskahikan/Edmonton, AB for the last 15 years, she has an MFA from the University of Alberta and is a recipient of the 2020 Edmonton Artist Trust Fund Award.
Her work has been shown in abandoned buildings, underground parking lots, universities, public parks, suburban malls, and dollhouses with exhibitions in New York, Iceland, Germany, and throughout Edmonton: notably at the Kimura Gallery (Alaska), the 2020 Canadian Biennial of Fibre Art (Idea Exchange, Cambridge ON) as well as in Future Station, the 2015 Biennial of Alberta Art (Art Gallery of Alberta). She is thankful for support from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Edmonton Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts. www.almalouisevisscher.com
Want to participate in a workshop to help inform Alma’s public art project at the Orange Hub?
As part of Alma’s research for the project, she is looking at the colour of the site: from the plants, gardens, and kitchens that make up the spaces and communities around the Orange Hub. To facilitate this, she will be hosting two natural ink making sessions (August 28 and August 30) with plant contributions from the wider Orange Hub Community (including those that live near, work near, or pass by the parkade).
The colour samples/swatches of the ink/plants/materials will be documented/scanned and used to inform the colours of the public art installation on the parkade.
When: Wednesday August 28, 5 — 7 PM or Saturday August 31, 2 — 4 PM
Where: The Orange Hub, Room 105 — Multipurpose Room
Event Address: 10045 156 St NW, Edmonton, AB T5P 2P7
Related
