CZarina Lobo was born in Goa, India, raised in Australia, and now resides on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish First Peoples. Vancouver, B.C. Her rich cultural background, coupled with a deep curiosity about the natural world, fuels her passion as a natural dyer focused on cultivating plants for color. CZarina has created her own dye garden, sourcing materials from garden waste, windfall, and alleyway forages, blending sustainability with creativity.
CZarina’s learning journey has continued through hands-on experiences with nature, always eager to experiment and explore new techniques. Over the years, she has honed her craft and shared her knowledge through a variety of teaching opportunities. She has led workshops for homeschooling families and for public schools, collaborated with the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society, and facilitated natural dye guilds with EartHand Gleaners Society. Additionally, CZarina runs basketry workshops with Village Vancouver. A passionate community advocate, CZarina is dedicated to educating others on the value of using invasive plants and garden waste for creative projects, fostering a greater connection to the environment through nature-based art.
Website: https://www.thetwistedfibres.com/home
Sharon Kallis – “How can I be a maker, without first being a consumer?”
Sharon began asking herself this question over twenty years ago in response to a creeping feeling of dis-ease about the materials she was using in her practice as an environmental artist. She began investigating unconventional fibre sources and approaches to art and handwork in her studio, tracing lines of knowledge about how to harvest and prepare fibres, and adapting techniques to use them. Since Sharon is a community activist and connector at her core, her passion and skills quickly expanded into a community-wide pursuit.
Through the EartHand Gleaners Society she founded, Sharon has made it her mission to empower new groups to be makers in connection with the land, and continue to grow the community of artists working with invasive and native plant fibres and dyes. Artists and dancers, gardeners and herbalists, weavers, knitters, spinners, scientists, ecologists and educators, from First Nations as well as settler communities, have all come together to share and contribute to building up a collective knowledge connected to working with our hands.
Her personal goal since 2020 is to not purchase any garments, but to make all of her wardrobe using a warp weighted loom for locally spun and dyed fibres, or from repurposing under-loved textiles already in her home.
Website: https://sharonkallis.wordpress.com
David Gowman
(AKA Mr Fire-Man)
F-Man is that guy in your hood doing weirdo stuff with sticks. From a distance, he can look intimidatingly strange, a large fuzzy man honking a (usually enormous) wooden horn, for what purpose, who even knows? Should we run? Call the police? But from up close, he’s more fun. horns are grown and built from garden wood, and the music is original and sassy*. Available for parties and events with decent snacks, F-Man also teaches painting.
Sandra Vander Schaaf
Sandra Vander Schaaf – “My first workshop in 2022, I have been joyfully immersed in the EartHand Gleaners community. By way of introduction, let me share a reminiscence…” workshop, From Wood to Wool with Sharon Kallis and Anna Heywood-Jones, included a pre-session invitation to the Means of Production gardens to prune the fruit trees whose bark would release the dyes we would learn to apply to locally sourced wool. This wool came from a sheep named Creampuff, of the nearby Barnston Island flock tended lovingly by EartHand collaborators Susan and John Russell. The workshop was held “Trillium Park” according to the city map, but we were welcomed to Skwácháýs, a place that in pre-contact times was lush with salt marshes and underground springs, land that has always belonged to the Halkomelem-speaking peoples.
This was learning unlike anything I’d encountered before. Begun with an act of seasonal care for local apple, cherry, pear, and plum trees, continued with an introduction to a named and loved sheep, grounded on land acknowledged to be unjustly occupied and abused. Here was joy, relationship, respect, and accountability. I pretty much floated through every part of this first experience. It was such a gift. It is a gift that keeps on giving. Before coming to EartHand, my textile art practice was limited to traditional fibre-based practices like embroidery, sewing, knitting, and felting.
While I remain grateful for the skills passed on to me by my mother and grandmothers— and there’s still much joy to be had in such creative endeavours—it has been a delight to see my practice transformed through learning a variety of ancestral, land-based skills. I absolutely love every part of working with wool, from point of shearing to point of wearing. But I am body-and-soul captivated by all the ways we two-leggeds can collaborate with plant kin—from dye and bast fibre magic to basketry. This has been transformational on so many levels and I am deeply grateful.
I look forward to sharing out of my love and respect for the community, for ancestral skills, and for the gifts of the land, as both an instructor (which I prefer to think of as a learning circle facilitator, but I’m wordy sometimes) and as a working artist Board member.
Onward, together.
Website: https://sandravanderschaaf.ca/
EartHand Gleaners Society 