The prompt SHAME reminded me of my walks around Toronto in 2019. It could have been any major city to be fair, as they all have homeless people sleeping on the streets. I was amazed at the millions of people who walk by daily, stepping over other human beings asleep on the street and carrying on with their daily life. When this prompt appeared, I struggled initially with the idea this series is based on my trip to the USA and Canada and as I was going through my endless photos I was looking at Toronto and that brought back the memories of that day. Here we were enjoying an amazing holiday yet seeing others much less fortunate. I wanted to portray they crisp newspapers bought each morning on the way to work, the tall grey buildings and then the rough cloth and dirty newspapers used by the homeless to keep warm.

The grey back ground fabric is painted and sunprinted and is sliced with a commercial fabric. The deep red-purple is hand dyed with a touch of black and folded in a large container. I have taken some of the commercial fabric and overpainted it to show it is no longer new yet daily the crisp new newsprint appears and is discarded in the rubbish a bit like those using them as bedding to survive. Yes, some of it is self-inflicted but its an addiction at the end of the day so why as a society do we not look after them?

Here is a detail of the fabrics where you can see the texture on the fabrics reflecting the pathways and buildings then the torn cloth that is found in the rubbish

Homeless 40in x 20in

Machine pieced and fused applique, machine quilted. Hand dyed, hand painted, rusted and commercial fabrics