Fiona Kerr Gedson is a fibre artist who has used feathers as her primary medium for more than 25 years. She works from her home near Ōpōtiki, in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, Aotearoa NZ.

Fiona’s meticulously crafted, intricately designed feather pieces have a calming and meditative presence. Her work reflects and honours the things most important to her – her family, her spirituality, shared experiences, life stages and a sense of kotahitanga (unity).

Her most recent collection, Pilgrimage, is the embodiment of this. Inspired by walking the Camino de Santiago – completing 1500km over 8 1/2 weeks, this series responds to the many stained glass windows found in chapels and cathedrals on Fiona's remarkable life changing hikoi, which she undertook in 2022.

In this episode we have a beautiful conversation about walking the Camino and how this has consequently influenced her art practice. Fiona shares a personal experience of losing her precious father 3 weeks in to the pilgrimage and how she managed to process and manage her initial grief and keep walking. We discuss another influence in her practice, her work with Family Constellations (a method of family therapy or systemic therapy), and how this has also informed her practice.

Fiona shares how she started working with feathers in her early twenties; how she sources the peacock, turkey, guinea fowl and hen feathers; her positive long term connections with galleries; her meticulous creative process; her framing approach and the meditative aspects of pattern. And so much more.

You can see the uncut video of our conversation on our You Tube channel Creative Connections Podcast. I'd love you to subscribe!

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