I grew up in Freshwater, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, the youngest of seven children. My mother and both of my grandmothers hooked rugs as a past time, and as a chore of necessity. By the time I was born by my grandmothers had died and my mother had long since abandoned rug hooking as a chore of poverty. In Newfoundland in the late sixties, and early seventies very few people were hooking, though there was still a scattered mat hanging about peoples back doors. For the most part it was out with the old and in with the new. I can still see a Rita Murphy, my friends mother, sitting in her back room, hooking away on her mats. Her floors were a carpet of many multicoloured hooked rugs. At the time to me it seemed an old fashioned thing. Little did I know that I would spend years doing exactly the same thing.

I learned to hook rugs because I wanted rugs for an old farmhouse where I had settled. Though I did not know how to hook, it was something I had always been familiar with. As a teenager, I began seeing rugs for what they were. I marveled that a womans' hand had pulled up every loop in a rug that lay on the floor of my sisters' farmhouse.In my mid twenties, I went to an annual meeting of The Rug Hooking Guild of Nova Scotia, and Marion Kennedy taught me the basics. How to cut your wool, and how to pull up a loop, then she told me to get to it. As soon as I started hooking rugs I knew it was for me. It was a simple technique, and I could see my progress. I finished my first little stamped pattern with in a week and so it began.

I learned that I could tell stories, and express myself through rug hooking. This is what really got me involved with it. Each time I make a rug I create a new design. In many of my pieces I tell stories or express ideas about the world. I work full time as a rug hooking artist. Each piece I create is different from the last. I use recycled cloth, gather old wool clothing from real people in real communities. The clothes are washed dryed and torn apart. It is then hooked loop by loop on a a backing of burlap or linen.
 
 

Artistic History

1990
Began hooking rugs
1992
Work is represented by private galleries
1993
Work is represented at The Nova Scotia Folk Art Festival, a juried show of authentic Nova Scotia Folk Artists.
1994
Work is purchased by The Nova Scotia Art Bank for their permanent collection
"Village" a large rug was purchased by The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia for their permanent collection.
Six rugs included at the Spring Folk Art Show at The Susan Whitney Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan.
Work is chosen for The Marion McCain Atlantic Canadian Art Exhibit, which opened at The Beaverbrook Gallery and toured internationally.
First Solo exhibit, From Freshwater, held at the Cumberland County Museum Amherst, Nova Scotia.
Red Island , a large rug was purchased by The Canadian Museum of Civilization for their permanent collection.
1995
Work is exhibited at The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia as part of the Permanent Collection.
Awarded B grant for professional artists from the Canada Council.
participated in Art en Direct, Galerie Sans Nom, Moncton, New Brunswick
1996/97
Solo Exhibit at The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, One for Sorrow, Two for Joy, which toured seven galleries throughout Atlantic Canada.
Work purchased by The Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador
Work purchased by The Nova Scotia Art Bank
1998
Work is exhibited at The Canadian Museum of Civilization show Hooked on Rugs, and selected as artist to speak at opening reception.
Work appears in Piecework, and Rug Hooking Magazine, two American fibre arts publications.
Work accepted for Visual Arts Nova Scotia Show, Far and Wide, which toured provincially.
Appeared on CBC National Radio show, Morningside.
1999
Hook Me a Story, a History and Method of Rug Hooking in Atlantic Canada is published. It is now in it's fourth printing.
2000
Solo exhibit at Justina M. Barnickie Gallery at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario.
Appeared on CBC National Radio show, This Morning, with Shelagh Rogers.
Appointed as member of the Editorial board of Rug Hooking Magazine
2001
Solo exhibit, The Common Soul, at Acadia University Art Gallery, Wolfville Nova Scotia.
Film on work created by Eastlink Cable Television for Nova Scotia Provincial Television
2002
Selected for Playing Card Rugs, a show curated by Linda Rae Coughlin 
Peer Review Committee, Nova Scotia Arts Council
2003
Work featured in  A Passion for the Creative Life,Textiles to Lift the Spirit by Mary Sheppard Burton
2004
Work featured as a CBC Television Program,  Story with a Hook, on Land And Sea. This airs nationally April 18, 2004.
Feildworks, June 2004, a exhibit with Barbara Hill Taylor at The Lunenburg Art Gallery

2005 to 2007

Solo Exhibit, The Woman In the Mat, at The Mary Black Gallery, Nova Scotia Centre For Craft and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Keynote Address, for 450 members of the American Association of Traditional Rug Hookers

Second book published, The Secrets of Planning and Design published by Stackpole Books, Pennsylvania

Chosen for CBC Artspots

Opening Address of The Newfoundland and Labrador Rug Hooking Guild Show at The Rooms Provincial Museum and Art Gallery.

Third Book Published, East Coast Rug Hooking Designs by Nimbus

Third Book Nominated for Best Published Book in Atlantic Canada, and an Ippy Award, 2007

Guest Speaker, at the Mary Black Gallery, during  the  2007 Atlantic Book Awards

Group Exhibit, Hooked Rugs ,curated by Denis Longchamps at Musee des maitres et artisans du Quebec, Montreal

Notices Reviews and Articles
The Halifax  Herald
The Toronto Star
The Evening Telegram
Century Home Magazine
Select Homes
The Halifax Daily News
The Austrailian Textile Forum
Canadian House And Home
Weaving New Rhythms, 2001
Piecework Magazine
Rug Hooking Magazine
New Brunswick Reader
A Passion for The Creative Life, by Mary Sheppard Burton
Studio Rally by Robin Metcalfe

Timber Living

Chatelaine Magazine

Media
CBC National Radio,This Morning and Morningside
CBC RAdio Atlantic
Harrowsmith Country Life Television
East Link Provincoial Television
 CBC TElevision's Land and Sea

Permanent Collections
The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
The Canadian Museum of Civilization
The Nova Scotia Art Bank
The Art Gallery of Nfld. and Labrador

Memberships/Affiliation
Editorial Board Rug Hooking Magazine
Rug Hooking Guild of Nova Scotia
Visual Arts Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia Folk Art Society

Writers Federation of Nova Scotia