For the month of October, local artist Betty Caskey has her full collection of artwork on display at the Mountain View Museum and Archives in Olds.
It is also the first time all of it has been on display at the same time.
“It's very exciting,” she said. “It's kind of neat to come in here and say, wow, I really did all of this?”
During this time, a silent auction is also being held, with proceeds benefiting the museum.
The exhibit runs until Oct. 30 and includes more than 40 pieces of work spread across different media, including dyed silk, crazy quilting, acrylics, stitched fabrics, textiles and other mixed media.
It is, as Caskey said, an eclectic collection, though her main specialty is textile work.
She's been creating her technicoloured pieces of art for decades, including 10 years spent attending classes at schools in Washington and two years at Olds College's fashion program.
Caskey said she draws inspiration from her garden and interesting colours. Her exhibit features work depicting mountains, flowers and fields.
One of her works, entitled “Roses,” is a piece of silk ribbon embroidery originally intended as a jacket collar.
It features numerous strips of silk woven into balls resembling roses and threads sewn in for stems — all of it densely packed into a background five centimetres (cm) wide and 30 cm long.
“Roses” is one of the few items not for sale.
Caskey said the time it takes to complete a project varies depending on how many techniques are used.
For example, a dozen were used to create her “Poppy Box.”
“Anywhere between one hour to a couple hundred hours. So it varies,” she said.
Although Caskey recently sold one of her pieces, she has never created art for the money, as there's no way to recoup the time and money invested.
“Those pictures should be with another zero on the end just to help pay for the classes,” Caskey said.
Instead, she gets the satisfaction of sharing her work.
“I'm just so pleased to be able to show this to people.”
