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Vickie Newington, SCA 9847 Palistone Road S.W. Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T2V 3W1 Phone - 403-281-1182 Email - Vickie@VickieNewington.com Website - www.vickienewington.com Biography I am an experienced fibre artist, whose love of creating started as a small child. To this day, my favourite media are fibre and mixed media, as they are versatile and very expressive. In 2000, I enrolled in the very intense City and Guilds of London Design and Embroidery program, and graduated in 2004 from Part I.  Fibre based, the course taught me to experiment with different materials such as Tyvek (a fibrous material that bubbles when heated), tissue paper made stitchable, and Timtex (a very stiff kind of felt) in a contemporary fashion, pushing the limits of what they could do. I cannot help but explore further with fibre. The City and Guilds course gave me the confidence to put my work up where others could see and enjoy it. Since then, I have been very active in various organizations and groups, exhibiting, and selling my work. I joined the Society of Canadian Artists in 2003. Travelling to other countries made me realize how much I enjoy architecture, and gardening makes me appreciate Mother Nature. The crumbling, deteriorating kind of building is visually the most interesting to me - Portugal was a wonderful source of inspiration, partly because what is not being built is already falling down. I  work with lines, form and texture. My new pieces are inspired by the colours and textures of water running down a limestone cliff, tiny insect holes in the ground, weathered corrugated metal, or the lines of wooden boards as a barn collapses. My designs start with a pencil drawing and then I create different samples of fabrics with varying treatments applied to them, such as painting, beading, and burning. After choosing the best technique to bring to life the vision in my mind, I complete the piece adding textural bits and pieces as I go. The most important aspect of a successful piece of fibre art is that it must first and foremost be a good design. Then, it must exhibit skilled craftsmanship, and the techniques used must be appropriate to getting the point of the work across to the viewer. My methods are labour intensive, and sometimes unorthodox, but chosen to work well with my vision, and maintain a high quality of craftsmanship. Today, I work full time as a fibre artist. I exhibit regularly and my work appears in private collections in Canada and the United States.  My dream for the future is to continue growing and learning as I create my art, which satisfies my soul. Artist Statement Working with textiles has been a lifelong pleasure for me. I have a passion for trying new techniques and concoctions that can be adapted for my use as a fibre artist. I am fascinated by the richness of layering – the way an image appears and disappears underneath another image that is partially visible - that allows the audience to make up their own stories about what the images are or what has happened to them.  I approach fibre design in a painterly fashion, being aware of contrasts, leading the viewer’s eye around, and using other “guidelines” of painting. I celebrate the beauty of Mother Nature and architecture by playing with texture, dimension, and colour. I like to hint at the picturesque history of a structure by using dark colours and ghostly edges that decay and disintegrate. The texture is visual, perceived through pattern and lines stamped, stenciled, or painted on the cloth, and literal with the application of puffy paints, wire, or layers of fibre stuffed to achieve high relief. The colours I use most are complex and subdued allowing the viewer a quiet spot to reflect and think. Fabric is tactile – it is warm, versatile, and very flexible. Depending on the final look I’m after, I can create a look that is hard and shiny, fuzzy and squishy, or crumbling due to age. Sometimes leaving the edges raw and unfinished makes my work livelier, more spontaneous, with threads at the edges dangling off the piece. After quickly sketching out some ideas, I design the image full-size to use as a pattern. Choosing appropriate fabrics, be they smooth or nubbly, shiny or matte, I then apply a “basecoat” of colour. When this layer has dried, I stamp, stencil, or silkscreen to give me an all-important texture, and then the real fun starts with embellishment – beading, stitching by hand or machine, applying other fabrics, or a myriad of other possibilities.   The sizes of my pieces vary from miniatures to very large works that need a wall behind for support. They are sold in galleries and through commissioned orders. Curriculum Vitae SOLO SHOWS FibreEssence Gallery                                                                                          Vancouver, British Columbia., Canada              2007 Alberta Craft Council                                                                                           Edmonton, Alberta, Canada                                 2000 SELECTED JURIED AND CURATED EXHIBITIONS Architecture of Winnipeg, Articulation, McMullen Gallery, confirmed            Edmonton, Alberta, Canada                                 2009 Architecture of Winnipeg, Articulation,  Mennonite Centre, confirmed          Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Cherry Blossoms, Friends of fibreEssence, fibreEssence Gallery                Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada               2008 Meta Incognita, Articulation, Mary E. Black Gallery                                         Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Changes, Free Spirits, Akokiniskway Gallery                                                  Rosebud, Alberta, Canada                                   2007 Meta Incognita, Articulation, Banff Centre for Performing Arts                      Banff, Alberta, Canada Fantasy, Grand National, Kitchener/Waterloo Art Gallery                               Kitchener, Ontario, Canada A Sense of Place, Society of Canadian Artists, Leighton Art Foundation   Millarville, Alberta, Canada Changes, Free Spirits, Leighton Art Foundation                                             Millarville, Alberta, Canada Meta Incognita in conjunction with the Calgary Opera Company,                Articulation, Jubilee Auditorium                                                          Calgary, Alberta, Canada Members’ Show, Society of Canadian Artists,                Art Gallery of Northumberland                                                             Coburg, Ontario, Canada                                      2006 Still Related, 2-woman show, Sidestreet Gallery                                             Wellington, Ontario, Canada InSeries, Alberta Craft Council                                                                          Travelling, Alberta, Canada Just For Fun, Focus on Fibre Arts Association                                               Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Changes, Free Spirits, Cityscape                                                                     North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Changes, Free Spirits, McMullen Gallery                                                         Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Related, 2-woman show, Sidestreet Gallery                                                    Wellington, Ontario, Canada                                 2005 West Coast Textures, fibreEssence                                                                 North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada           Badlands, Articulation, the Station                                                                    Okotoks, Alberta, Canada Spring Grandeur, Society of Canadian Artists, Gallery on the Grand           Waterloo, Ontario, Canada All About Alberta, Alberta Craft Council                                                           Edmonton, Alberta, Canada texture of time, 2-woman show, Alliance Francaise,                                       Calgary, Alberta, Canada Members' Show, Society of Canadian Artists Juried Exhibition                   Guelph, Ontario, Canada                                      2004 City and Guilds Graduation Exhibition                                                             Calgary, Alberta, Canada Elemental Inspiration – Out of the Wildfire, Whyte Museum                            Banff, Alberta, Canada Constructions of Canada, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery                              Kitchener, Ontario, Canada Canadian Landscapes, Invitational Show, Quilt Museum                               La Conner, Washington U.S.A. Pan Canadian Quilt Show                                                                                  Hawaii, U.S.A. New Members’ Show, Society of Canadian Artists, Heliconian Hall            Toronto, Ontario, Canada City and Guilds of London Show, Cultural Centre Gallery                              Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada Fantasy in Fibre, Free Spirits, Bowman Centre                                              Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada                                2003 Appleby Gallery                                                                                                   Oakville, Ontario, Canada                                     2002 Avens Gallery                                                                                                       Canmore, Alberta, Canada   AWARDS AND COMMISSIONS Floral Sunshine - Private Commission                                                            Calgary, Alberta, Canada                                     2007 I See the Sea - Private Commission                                                                Calgary, Alberta, Canada                                     2005 Empty Nest - Best of category, Focus on Fibre Arts                                       Edmonton, Alberta Canada Barn I - Honorable Mention, Society of Canadian Artists Show                    Guelph, Ontario, Canada The Healing Tree - Best in Show, Focus on Fibre Arts,                                Edmonton, Alberta, Canada                                 2004 Hilltop Town - Private Commission                                                                  East Wallingford, Vermont, U.S.A.                       2002 ARTICLES AND TELECOMMUNICATION Meta Incognita Explores Frobisher, by Vickie Newington, Summer Issue, Canadian Quilters’ Association, 2007 Contemporary Calgary Fibre Art by Vickie Newington, Summer Issue, Canadian Quilters’ Association, 2005 Profiles by Chuck Ruff, St Albert Gazette, Alberta, Canada, 2003 Gallery Exhibition Wide-Ranging by Christopher Nash, Stony Plain Reporter, Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada,  2003     A Woman’s Work is Never Done by Mary-Beth Laviolette, Calgary Herald Interview, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 2002 Free Spirits Exhibition, Shaw Television Interview, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 2002   Alberta Winter Games 2000 Calendar, Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada, 1999  EDUCATION City and Guilds Embroidery and Design, under Gail Harker, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 2000-2004 Studied painting weekly with David Kitler at the Jon Williams’ Studio, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 1997-2000 Independent studies, 1978 to present including Techniques Only with Gail Hunt, Frescoes & Fragments and Raising the Surface with Maggie Grey, Pyrotextiles with Amanda Jones , Surface Embellishment with Glenys Mann, Designing from Nature with Ruth Mc Dowell, and many others. College of Art and Design, Calgary Alberta, Canada, Foundation Year, 1984 BSc in General Studies, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 1973-1977 AFFILIATIONS Society of Canadian Artists Alberta Craft Council Visual Arts Alberta Association    Free Spirits Fibre Art Network Articulation Leighton Art Centre Association of Pacific Northwest Quilters Home     The Artist     Her Work    Her Associates Calgary, AB, Canada Phone 403-281-1182 - Vickie@VickieNewington.com © Vickie Newington.  All rights reserved