Featured Yellow Flag Chamber Member
The Gabriola Chamber would like to introduce you to Frances Usher, sculptor and painter!
Hello! I’m Fran Usher
Straddling BC and Ontario for most of my life, and raising a family in the east, no wonder our clan is spread across Canada! My formal art training began in Kingston, Ont. with a Bach. Of Fine Arts in Sculpture and Painting and a Bach. of Education in Visual Arts. I was in the “art classroom” for 12 years and left formal teaching to open my own studio practice. An “artist for hire” was my mode of income, with my hand in everything from topographical 3d models to large metal foyer pieces! It was a lot of fun to collaborate on projects; a blended vision of client and artist.
Ten years ago, I left the commission world to concentrate on my own studio practice and professional output. The direction I have explored was no surprise. Human behavior, socialism, and passionate aesthetic outcries on behalf of women…this is the realm I operate in and always have. Called an activist at times, my visual forms are filled with a strong narrative, with a want to affect change in attitudes. One of the ways of achieving this SOCIAL change is exploring ways of making the work as ethereal as possible much like music can. Often the work has a measure of humour, kineticness, sound and a grave seriousness to it.
With a need to raise aesthetic awareness, (a rebel cause of its own), my work with past and present arts councils, artist groups, and community events promoting integrated arts, has always been a gratifying call. Creativity within community not only makes for a healthier community, but it is vibrancy of life at its best!
You can find Fran in the Gabriola Visitor Guide, the studio is B82 on the map!
Website: http://www.francesusher.ca
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/francesusher.ca/