....Anne and basketry found each other in the mid 70's. After a move to Orveas Bay near Sooke BC in 1981, she was introduced to seaweeds, roots, and other locally harvested materials. Anne never looked back. From then on the most likely place to find her was combing the beach for her flotsam treasures. Whatever the Pacific swells brought to the shores of Orveas Bay, became her palette.   ....Anne's three children were raised in a Gordon's Beach cabin on Orveas Bay. Her home seemed to be made of seaweed, or at least, it often smelled of seaweed. Her children were used to sharing the back of her station wagon with hauls of freshly gathered sun-dried bull kelp. Not many mothers get so excited about winter storms that they take their children out of school early to go beach combing for Japanese glass fish floats. Anne is one of those people. The stones, the driftwood, the seaweeds, the incredible forms and textures in nature all inspire her.   ....She and friend Kathy Johannesson went on to form the Orveas Bay Basket Weavers and to win the Sooke Fine Art show's very first Jurors Choice Award in 1986. Anne's baskets have since shown in Galleries across Canada ... Sooke, Saltspring, Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, and Montreal.   ....Now living beside DeMamiel Creek, and equipped with a new studio, Anne's work has again been transformed ... this time by the humble gourd. She has become verifiability gourd crazy. Her studio is like a living collage, full of bits and pieces of treasures from thrift shops and yard sales, from grandmothers and children and of course from the beach. Layers of seaweeds, moss, sticks, gourds, paint, paper, stamps, inks ... all the gleanings from her foraging are a new source of inspiration. You can see a little bit of Anne's eclectic studio in many of her gourds and pins ... layered and collaged until they resemble sculptural pottery more than vegetable. ....In 2006, for the first time, Anne grew gourds in her green house. She is now more in love with gourds than ever. If you've ever seen them grow, you'd know why. She is inspired by every one of them ... they have become her new palette ... her Growing Palette.