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Art quilts at Leigh

About 30 years ago, Sechelt artist Pat Crucil worked on traditional quilts, the same ones parents place on children's beds and adults use as a spread in their own sleeping quarters.

About 30 years ago, Sechelt artist Pat Crucil worked on traditional quilts, the same ones parents place on children's beds and adults use as a spread in their own sleeping quarters.

Then, she took a program at Capilano University and transferred her love of paint onto cloth to design art quits that could be hung on walls or draped across banisters.

She dyed, painted and did silk screens on white cloth - a surface that she found was more pliable than canvas. As well, "it has better movement and is softer to the touch, unlike paintings," she said.

Over the years, the Winnipeg native has created hundreds of art quilts, many of which have been exhibited around Canada and in Japan and the United States. They are much smaller than traditional quilts, she said, the largest being about 60 by 50 inches and the smallest about 18 by 40 inches.

And tomorrow (Thursday), a retrospective of Crucil's work will open at Leigh Square Community Arts Village in Port Coquitlam that will display about 20 of her pieces in an exhibit titled A Life of Stitches and Colour.

The idea for a lookback came at the suggestion of Yvonne Chui, PoCo's arts and culture co-ordinator. Crucil said she didn't want to replicate a show she's holding in Pender Harbour next month, which will feature her art quilts from the past year, "so the idea of a retrospective was interesting to me."

Crucil said colour, texture, travel, photography - and, most interestingly, rust and decay - are her sources of inspiration.

jwarren@tricitynews.com