Echo Echo: Lori Zebiere

May 09, 2019

Echo Echo: Lori Zebiere

I am gliding over still, cold water. I hear a call that carries like no other. It’s hollow: flutey and reedy both, and most definitely Canadian. It’s a sound that has been heard here forever, an echo of the past.

Lori Zebiere at Boreal Chorus Studio imagines herself as a Great Variegated Loon. Actually, that takes twice the usual imagination ...
There is no such bird.
Lori says the Great Variegated Loon is symbolic of her personality and roots:

I was born and raised in Ontario and ‘migrated’ to Manitoba. The Great Variegated Loon name derives from combining the Common Loon, Ontario’s provincial bird, with Manitoba’s provincial bird, the Great Grey Owl. The variegated component hatches from my love of saturated, bold colours. I also love that the Canadian dollar is known iconicaly as a “loonie” and I enjoy the word play with the slang association of a ‘loon’ being a slightly out-there and unpredictable character.

Lori Zebiere is an artist/crafter whose work is both an echo of the past and a call into contemporary times. Her market bower will be filled with the items she's created just for our patrons. She working in a variety of materials and techniques, including nålebinding (Danish: “needle binding” a fabric making technique so old it predates both knitting and crochet), natural dyeing, and embroidery, and she calls into the future with modern age digital media, photography and video:

Primarily, I create whimsical, brightly coloured acrylic paintings of animals, landscapes and structures and am often inspired by geometry, math in nature, quilt patterns, origami and cubism. I am fascinated by human-animal relationships; community and the cumulative effect human-beings have on both animals and our environment over time. I work from my home-studio sanctuary, known as the Boreal Chorus Studio, which is located on 5 park-like acres in Eastern Manitoba. It is here, where I find peace and am free to get lost for hours creating in my own little world.

The past is echoing into the future at Proutopia: Birds of a Feather.
It’s bright, fun, mathematical ... and maybe just a bit looney.

WK p.p.