Susan Purney Mark

Award winning textile artist, Susan Purney Mark, lives on Pender Island BC, the traditional lands of the W?SA?NEC? and Tsawout peoples.
She has been creating both contemporary wall and dimensional work since the early 1990’s and is known for her extensive experience in a wide range of surface design, dyeing, screen printing and wax resist techniques. She has trained with the London City and Guilds programme as well as the Ontario School of Art and Design and the Vancouver Island School of Art. Susan’s recent focus has involved an exploration of the Industrial Shoreline, drawing her ideas from her coastal travels and this work incorporates mark making, layers of paint and dyes with dense stitching both by hand and machine. Currently, her focus has involved mark making, text and narrative and she is working with controlled colour palette, a movement towards abstraction with layers of cloth and paper including recycled and “found” surfaces. She will often create layers paint and dyes into her pieces and is also exploring dimensional body/vessel forms. She is an active member of the fibre arts community in British Columbia, Canada and is a member of national/ international fibre and surface design associations.

My home on Pender Island is located in the middle of the Salish Sea, an inland sea that encompasses Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands and the waters off of Vancouver, BC. The area spans from Olympia, Washington in the south to the Campbell River, British Columbia in the north, and west to Neah Bay and includes the large cities of Seattle and Vancouver. 
Increasingly, the sea and its surrounding watersheds are challenged by an ever-growing list of threats. Ocean acidification, a burgeoning human population, increased marine shipping traffic, and unchecked waste water and sewage runoff are just a few of the immediate pressures that are endangering this jewel of an ecosystem. If healthy ecosystems foster economic prosperity, unhealthy ones represent lost opportunity and income. Whether we depend upon the ocean for our living or for our quality of life, we all benefit from a healthy Salish Sea.This series is an homage to our fragile earth, this Island Home.