With An Ode to Phoebe, I bring my contemporary textile work into conversation with the hand-painted china of Phoebe Watson created more than one hundred years ago. In setting my wall-mounted textiles and freestanding sculptural forms alongside Phoebe’s historic painted ceramics, I reflect on the importance of plants and pollinators in southern Ontario over time and on the ecosystems of the Grand River Valley and the Niagara Escarpment—places shaped by time, human activity, and seasonal cycles.

This body of work is a meditation on time, place, and materials. I am working in the 2000s with textiles and natural fibres in the Niagara Escarpment, while Phoebe Watson (1858–1947) worked in the early 1900s using paint and china in the Grand River Valley. Phoebe is best known for her expressive florals and landscapes painted on china, but she also worked in watercolour and oil, documenting the land around her with care and sensitivity. Despite this century-long distance, I feel a strong kinship with her. Like me, she was a gardener, an observer, and someone compelled to present plants as more than decoration—as living, essential presences. Her work captures a moment when decorative arts were deeply entwined with daily life and landscape appreciation.