Licensed to Show Part 3

A graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, Susan Bidinosti has worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the Textile Museum of Canada and had a twenty-year career as a surface print designer and colourist in the commercial textile industry. A teaching experience in the Veterans Arts program at Parkwood Hospital in London, ON led to a deep interest in the relationships between art and health, from which a personal art practice emerged. Her personal work caught the attention of a researcher at Western University resulting in an opportunity to work in arts-based research in health professional and medical education. Observing cardiac surgeons as part of this research and seeing the beating human heart during surgery has opened up a new set of directions for her work.

Leslie Bush was born in Toronto and pursued two distinct careers, in life-sciences and textile design. She studied both at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, and Goldsmith College in London, England. Bush is the holder of several awards and scholarships from the Ontario College of Art and other institutions. Her passion for life-sciences and textiles aligned as Bush took part in two exhibits at the Central Hospital in Toronto, Ontario in 1983. 

After working for many years at the University of Toronto, Leslie retired from the University in 2013, where she held the position of Assistant Vice-Provost, Health Sciences.  Although Leslie does not work in the textile medium any more, she is a passionate photographer who expresses her creative side in photography.

Dorothy Caldwell was born in Bethesda, Maryland, United States and immigrated to Canada in 1972. She lives and works in Hastings, Ontario, and has held an active studio practice for over 25 years. She is a graduate of Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia. Her work has been influenced by her travels in India, Japan and Australia and contact with native fibre works. She started as a painter and has excelled as textile artist. Her stitching has used the white on indigo sashiko style, as practiced in Japan, or the patterned Indian kantha style. She was a recipient of the Prix Saidye Bronfman Award for Excellence in 1990 and a nominee for Governor General’s Award, 2003. Her striking textile works have been exhibited across Canada, United States and Australia and held in permanent collections by the Museum of Arts and Design, Permanent Collection in New York, New York, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Quebec, and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Ottawa, Ontario.

Heather Cameron was born in 1958 in Winnipeg, Manitoba and has moved around Canada, living everywhere from big cities to isolated islands. She is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University) where she studied with Ian Carr-Harris, Colette Whiten and John Scott. She originally worked in mixed media, sculpture, and installation, but textiles became her primary medium in the mid-1990’s. She has received grants from both the Canada Council and the Saskatchewan Arts Board and has exhibited in both Canada and the United States. Since 2012, her focus has been on a series of large scale hand embroidered works based on the first natural history of Canada, the 17th C. document Codex Canadensis.  She currently lives on Gabriola Island, British Columbia

Suzanne Carlsen graduated in 2006 from the Ontario College of Art and Design with a BDes in jewellery and metalsmithing. Upon graduation, she was a Craft studio resident at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto until 2009. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and had her first solo exhibition in late 2011 at Quirk Gallery in Richmond, Virginia. She has received several grants and scholarships from organizations such as the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Kirtley Jarvis was born in Ontario. She has attended The Ontario College of Art and Sheridan School of Design. Her early work includes embroidery and quilt pieces. She has experimented with the embroidery technique “couching” which allows her to reproduce handwriting. Material she selects for her work are diverse, and includes wire, wood, and stone. She has also been producing non-textile work. Jarvis is a multiple time recipient of Ontario Council for the Arts grants as well as the Juror’s award at Fibreworks, Cambridge Libraries and Galleries (2001), the Award of Excellence, Ontario Crafts (1979), the Burlington Cultural Centre, Burlington, Ontario and others. Her award winning textile work has been exhibited across Canada and can be found in private and public collections.

Born in China, Shuyu Lu completed her Bachelors of Design at Toronto's OCAD University in 2009 with a specialization in fibre. Since graduating she has received various awards and scholarships including the Helen Frances Gregor Scholarship for a Fibre Artist from the Ontario Craft Council in 2012. Her work has been exhibited in Toronto and Cambridge, Ontario and internationally in London, UK. From 2009-2012 she was artist-in-residence at Harbourfront Centre's Textile Studio. Embroidery is frequently used in Lu's work as she uses it to juxtapose ideas such as handmade vs. mass-production, and old vs. new.

Peggy Mersereau graduated from Sheridan College’s School of Craft and Design in 2000, then spent one year as a Craft Studio Intern at Harbourfront, followed by three years as an artist-in-residence in the Textile Studio at the Craft Studios at Harbourfront. Her main technique, free motion embroidery, allows her to build up colour and textural layers, which she uses in conjunction with dyeing, screen printing, and unusual threads. Mersereau’s work has been described as lace-like, and sometimes architectural. She is a member of the Surface Design Association, the Textile Museum of Canada, and the Artwear Network.

Anna Torma was born in Tarnaors, Hungary. Her interest in working with textiles goes back to early childhood when she learned to sew, knit, crochet and embroider from her mother and grandmothers. In1979, she graduated with a degree in Textile Art and Design from the Hungarian University of Applied Arts, Budapest, Hungary. She immigrated to Canada in 1988 and now lives in Baie Verte, New Brunswick. 

A visual artist, she is principally known for her large-scale hand embroidered wall hangings. She has been a grant recipient from the New Brunswick Art Bank, Ontario Council for the Art and the Canada Council for the Arts. Her work has been exhibited solo in Ontario and Hungary; and in group shows across Canada, in the United States, Hungary, France, England, Belgium, Germany and China. Torma’s work is held in the Contemporary Textile Collection, Szombathely, Hungary, the New Brunswick Art Bank, Fredericton, New Brunswick, the Museum of Art and Design, New York, New York and many others. Most recently, Torma's work "Bestiary No.1" was acquired for the permanent collection of the Canadian Embassy in Lima, Peru.