'Packrat's Dilemma' inspired by stories behind the clothing tags

For more than 20 years, Suzanne Picot has collected small items like clothing tags and stamps, eventually transforming them into art. 

When she settled outside of Carcross, Yukon, she started thinking about how she could reuse different materials. "I was challenged with 'Okay, what am I going to do with this, how am I going to make it functional?' I live in a tiny cabin. And so that's how I came about first with the quilt idea."

The more than 6,000 tags are stitched together into quilts that will adorn the walls at the Yukon Arts Centre as part of her show, Packrat's Dilemma.

"I love the little stories that they tell," she says about the tags. "I love the adventure of collecting them and I love the humour of when people came to visit me. I would check their label and it became this running joke." 

After exhausting her own wardrobe and those of friends, Picot was given access to the backroom of the Salvation Army in Whitehorse. For years she worked on sewing the tags together by hand.

"We're inundated by advertising every day and colour and imagery and I think it's so important for us to take the time to really look at the little details that are coming at us." 

She says one tag stands out among the thousands. It says "Shut up and Work".  Picot says while she was finishing her second quilt, the Rana Plaza factory collapse had just happened in Bangladesh.

"It kind of tied it all in for me that there is a cost to pay for cheap goods."

Picot has also been working with stamps, using them to cover furniture, chairs, tables and shelves, which will also be featured in the show.  

Packrat's Dilemma is on exhibit until Sept. 29.