Project: Activist Interviews

Image description: A colour photo of Persimmon Blackbridge looking into the camera, wearing a respirator mask. She is light-skinned person wearing a green crocheted hat, a dark blue knit jacket and has a long braid on her left side with a plum and dark blue fabric woven through her gray hair. Her workshop is out of focus in the background.

Artwork description: An image with 3 photos surrounded by a lilac coloured background.
First image on the right: A close up of sherbet (purple, orange and multiple shades of pink) polka dot fabric clown figures. Two heart shaped clown faces visible one above the other. The faces are lilac felted fabric, a black button for each pair of eyes. The eyes of the top face are each surrounded by 4 petal shapes and a 3 clover shaped mouth or nose below, all shapes in orange with pink outlines. The bottom face with eyes surrounded by 4 petals has a heart shaped nose or mouth, all shapes in pink with orange outlines. Second image in the centre: A full body length of someone wearing a handmade clown costume with sherbet polka dot fabric and long limbs of shiny lilac purple fabric with shiny silver cuffs between the extensions of the limbs. No part of the person’s skin or hair is visible.
Two clown faces are visible. One around the head of the costume, the other around the stomach. Both faces are heart shaped lilac fabric with a pair of black button eyes and 4 petals around each eye. Below the eyes are an upside down heart on the top face, a diamond shape on the bottom face. All shapes are orange and pink. The top of the costume and upper clown face has 3 ball shapes of polka dot fabric on the top and either side of the clown face. Below the clown face is a silver ruff collar. The lower clown face has a very tall pointy hat of polka dot fabric.
The person is wearing black pants and shiny silver fabric around their feet, as shoes.
The background is a purple mural wall with some rectangular shapes in purple, red, pink and turquoise. Third image to the left: A person wearing a version of the sherbet polka dot and lilac clown costume posing in a downtown alleyway. 3 clown faces are attached to this costume. The clown face with very pointy hat is at the top of the costume. A second clown face is off to the right side of the person’s torso. The third clown with 3 round shapes on head is centred in the stomach area of the costume.
The person is posing with the extra long pair of lilac arms open wide, extra limb fabric draping down, with two giant handmade glove hands in a shiny fabric at the bottom of each arm.

Artwork description: Overhead view of Mend To Reconstruct, a small quilt made out of beads, unframed, laying on a colourful, multi patterned fabric quilt. The art piece is a beaded version of a gingham quilt in high contrast of transparent white, metallic brown, and opaque black. A rainbow gradient of patches of “mending” are beaded across the piece. The colourful “mending” beads are primarily small with some larger round and unique shaped beads included.

Artwork description: A quilted large mango coloured sheet of fabric pinned to a wall with various shapes and shades of blue denim sewed by hand in the centre. Most of the shapes are rounded. Lots of dark blue thread is used. The thread is invisible on some of the denim shapes, or not easily seen and contrasts a lot with the light denim shapes.

Artwork description: The hanging cage and canvas are glowing with some neon paint. A blurry person on the left side of the image is moving the cage, a couple wavey orange lines of light painting are coming from the illuminated cage towards the person.The cage is blurry, lit and bright yellow and orange light coming from within the cage looks like flames outside the cage. The dangling ribbons blur into orange with accents of neon green, pink, purples and yellows.The multimedia canvas on the left is mostly shades of purple and pink and some glowing white with non-glowing green in the background.The textured layered rope, ribbon and pampas grass area are illuminated. The rope is neon green, the pampas grass is neon orange as well as a few orange strands of grass.To the bottom right of the canvas, the word EXIST is illuminated in a neon green colour.

Artwork description: IN BLOOM: A large greyscale illustration drawn in a digital medium that mimics charcoal. Three people are drawn from the waist up. Together they hold a glowing, blooming light source in their hands, nurturing it and supporting each other. The outlines of the people are brightly lit by the blooming light, while their bodies fade into the dark around them. The person in the middle has their face illuminated, their glossy eyes closed, and long, wavy hair frames their face and body. The people to their right and left have their backs to the viewer. The person to the left is tall and has long braided hair. The person to the right is shorter than the others and has short hair in tight curls. The artist’s signature in the bottom right corner says “Valen ‘22”.