By Annie Ellison
Published: Feb. 10, 2014
Frances Solar’s artwork was making the rounds on Pinterest before she’d even heard of the pin board-style photo-sharing website.
In January 2014, Solar was decorated as a Niche Awards winner — awards recognizing excellence in fine craft — for her ten-pound copper-woven sculpture “Pleated Vessel.”
“I play around a lot experimenting with colours and textures,”
A total of five pieces in her division, “Fabricated or Forged metal,” were selected from more than 2,000 entries across North America.
But before she wove metal, Solar wove wool, paper, wicker — anything she could get her hands on.
She began learning the extremely technical craft of blanket weaving more than 40 years ago, something that involves a tremendous degree of planning. But that aspect of weaving also bored her.
“I like being able to improvise, conventional weaving is too restrictive because all the planning is done ahead of time,” she says.
So, Solar decided to switch out wool and yarn and load her loom with copper metal wire.
“I play around a lot experimenting with colours and textures,” she says.
“I plan as I go, I don’t think it matters if I mess up.”
When Solar and her husband left Port Perry, Ontario in 1990, the looms were some of the first items loaded into the moving truck destined for Squamish.
“The movers weren’t too happy,” she says.
Her studio, tucked downstairs at her home in the Garibaldi Highlands, is full of what Solar calls “leftovers.”
These include coiled metal, spools of wire, baskets, paper, sprockets, hardware strapping, springs and coils, bicycle gears, keys, locks and washers. Hangings made from arrangements of these wayward pieces of metal line the walls of the workshop.
“You get into a zone with the arrangement and rhythm of the piece.”
Some pieces came from the now-defunct Boeing surplus store in Seattle, much of the wire can only be bought in New Jersey, and some of the gears are from as close-by as Republic Bicycles in Brackendale.
And you can tell she’s a weaver at heart. No newly discovered material stays unwoven for long. Her workbench is covered in woven metal, paper, even conventional cloth.
Solar takes several precisely cut pieces of what was once a Guinness beer can, and lays them out on the table, exactly the same distance apart.
“Now I tape these down and start weaving new pieces through.”
And if she runs out?
Solar points to a paper cutter in the corner: “I have that,” she says.
Among other materials, Solar uses colour-coated copper wire in her weaving. It’s this material that gives “Pleated Vessel” its distinct look.
Each spool of the colourful stuff weighs about a pound.
“I use them to do my shoulder exercises,” says Solar, picking one up.
Although the artist has never had a nine-to-five job, her work is never finished.
She sits down to her loom and sets up another weave.
“I don’t feel good if nothing’s happening.”
