An Eckville artist loves to take what appears to be nothing and turn it into something.
Sherry Richardson, 45, started tinkering with various styles of art after her career as a labour worker was out on the sidelines due to a back injury.
“If you keep your mind busy the pain seems to stay at bay,” said Richardson. “So right now there is this and playing the ukulele and yodelling, whatever I can do.”
“Everyday is a new day, this is just one of the projects, the bigger ones, that are more noticeable in the house,” she added.
The massive installation made up of hundreds of pieces of rolled magazine pages is now a focal point in her and her husband’s living room.
What used to be a painted depiction of a tree that was sitting in the garage has now been repurposed into a colourful mural made up of a whole bunch of little thoughts represented throughout the work.
“I kept my husband in mind when I was doing it and all of the things we’ve ever talked and laughed about,” said Richardson, who added the piece also contains a butterfly in honour of her late friend, the Butterfly Lady.
“The little house down there [on the piece] has a polka dot door, that’s my favourite from when we were kids,” reminisced Richardson.
She says the piece is made while thinking happy thoughts with no real rhyme or reason to the picture.
“It’s just literally whatever I felt at the moment … It was just literally built with an open mind.”
The piece, which she says is the one she is most excited about, took about 130 hours of work and has been done for about a little over a month.
Outside of paper rolling Richardson can be found tinkering with many platforms of art varying from crocheting to painting, although, she says carving into wood is her favourite.
“If I walk down the street and find a stick next thing you know it’s being painted, stuck on a piece of wood, I’ve got holes drilled into it, lights coming out, all kinds of stuff,” laughed Richardson.
“If I just see something cool and I have an idea, that’s why I end up with a room full of everything,” she added.
The pieces Richardson creates are either gifted to close friends, kept in her own home or make their way out to the garage to be sold.
“I’m always shocked that people buy them at our garage sale, ‘I’m like ‘you really like that?’” commented Richardson.
The artist helped with the Eckville float for Westerner Days a few years ago and says she would like to keep working on exciting projects within the town.
