Amy Edgar has always been a bit crafty. The Sherwood Park resident has been creating for as long as she can remember and will be putting this talent on display at the Royal Bison Craft and Art fair this upcoming weekend.

“I think my first drawing was put in the school newsletter when I was in Grade 2,” Edgar recalled.

“It was a ballerina with no head. I’m not sure if that was a thing they should have put in there, but they did. I’ve always been fairly arty. I would describe it as a bit of crafting ADD.”

Her crafting and creation is diverse. On top of making eclectic prints, she makes recycled sweater mittens and paper collage mirrors.

With her prints in mind, she attributes their creation to be a bit olfactory sensitivity.

“I love the smell of old books,” she said. “That plays a big part in my prints right now. The imagery is from old books, but digitized.

“The images come from late 1800s reference books and I Photoshop them in order to combine them or collage them.”

“The book I’m printing them on currently is a 1915 Winston Churchill book called The Inside of the Cup. It all kind of goes together.

“It is all about where you are at in your life,” Edgar added. “If you are happy or in love, an owl in a rib cage might not look like a happy fun thing, but it is really where I’m at in my life right now.”

As for whether she does it for the love of creation or making money, Edgar takes a practical approach to art.

“I make them with a little of both in mind,” she said. “Ultimately, you want to sell things at a craft show, but honestly I wouldn’t make it if I didn’t want to keep it for myself. They are all kinds of things that are mostly for me. It’s a little bit of selfish mixed with the hope that other people are going like it, too.

“It’s more about what is around me,” she continued. “I have these little books and I see the images and then I just figure out how to put them together. It is a need.

“It is therapy. It is a way to get things out. There is always a million things running through my head and it helps to sit down and work on something. Even though you are probably thinking about the next three things you are going to do, you are at least just getting it out.”

The craft fair is the embodiment of this, Edgar believes. A group of people making introspective things for functional reasons.

“We are really such a small community of people,” she said. “The Royal Bison is one of the best craft shows around. It’s smaller and not necessarily people going out to do it for business, they are doing it because they love it.

The Royal Bison Craft and Art Fair is on Saturday, Dec 1 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 2 from noon to 5 p.m. at 8426 Gateway Blvd. in Edmonton.

Admission is $2 and kids get in free. Visit royalbison.ca for more information.

trent.wilkie@sunmedia.ca

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