Gear: Dormir à la belle étoile.

I used to love summer best. On the west coast of Canada, summer meant warm, breezy days. The land cooled at night, a comfortable sleep –especially under the stars, drifting off under the points of light. Now temperatures in the summer can be blistering, life withering under the sun’s monocular glare. Rambling in the backcountry was a summer dream -wildflowers, cirrus filaments. Now I check the current wildfire reports and the forecast. Any hint of thunderstorms or lightning that might start a fire make me more nervous than meeting a bear. In my experience, bears usually vanish with great politeness, something an anvil cloud won’t do.

I am kept warm in my synthetic sleeping bag, but I fear being trapped by fire. Melting into the afterlife is the stuff of nightmares. As John Vaillant writes in Fire Weather, our houses are constructed and filled with petroleum products –they have become incendiary traps. The zipper is stuck, I can’t extricate myself. Everything smells of smoke.

photos: Ted Clarke, details matzkuhn

Gear

For this series , I deconstruct used outdoor equipment to create forms that are familiar, yet impractical. Some are interactive works that invite the viewer to unzip, unclip, and unbuckle elements that open to reveal embroidered innards. Three smaller pieces are designed for children to open.

I embroider images from my drawings and photographs to evoke places the gear may have traversed –places that subtly carry symptoms of global warming. I often see changes in the landscape and wonder, “Is this normal?” The delicacy of silk, cotton, and linen contrast with the durability of synthetic mesh and nylon webbing. Many of outdoor fabrics are made from substances like oil and coal that damage the environment and do not biodegrade. However, their water repellant qualities, light weight, and sturdiness are valuable for human comfort and safety.