Art Deco

This semester I am doing the Art History: 20th & 21st Century module with the JC School of Textile Arts. I have chosen to study the Art Deco Movement, which happened between the world wars, 1920 to 1940. It is proving to be a most interesting period to study.

Since the summer I have been collecting images of all things Deco and have built up quite a collection I have been able to use in my assignments.

This silk georgette dress, 1920, was in the summer exhibition in the National Costume Museum in Winnipeg.

While in Wolfville, Nova Scotia I recognised their Art Deco style cinema. Like so many cities and towns across North America, in fact around the world, cinemas were built in the new style to be able to house the new popular form of entertainment.

Art Deco has shown up in the most unexpected places. In an earlier post I showed this Art Deco treasure stored in a woolen factory behind bales of wool, in New Brunswick.

Know as a total style, the Art Deco aesthetic was applied to literally everything, from flour sifters to car hood/bonnet ornaments, which meant everyone who had even a little money to spend could participate in the movement and be seen as modern. Finally art/craft/design came out of museums into people's daily lives and wasn't elitist.
Three cheers for Art Deco.

More 'Urban Textures' Work

I am working with these images to make another piece in my 'Urban Textures' series that will be exhibited with Articulation in the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery in September.

Along with other works in this series it is a tribute to those early domestic and professional textile workers in Winnipeg who played a major and usually unacknowledged role in the growth and financial success of the city in its early days.

If you know where to look when in Winnipeg there remains so much evidence of the once flourishing textile industry. Articulation did a study week in Winnipeg, lead by 2 of its members who live in the city - Ingrid Lincoln & Miriam Levi Birkenthal. As long-time residences they knew where to take us so we could discover Winnipeg's past for ourselves.

Take Down at the McMullen

This week Donna Clement & I travelled to Edmonton to take down Articulation's exhibit of Winnipeg inspired work that has hung in the University of Alberta Hospital McMullen Gallery for the past couple of months.

This a bag made by Miriam Levi Birkenthal that was a late entry to the exhibition because the courier person couldn't find the gallery so sent the package with the bag in it back to Winnipeg where Miriam lives. Miriam had to send it to Vickie in Calgary who took it up to the gallery when she next did a workshop there. Everyone was very pleased when this well travelled bag made it to its plinth in the gallery.

The works have now been packaged up and will be sent on to Winnipeg where they will be exhibited in the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery from September this year. This space is twice as big as the McMullen so Articulation members, as I post, are making more Winnipeg works as a 2nd installment. It is a valuable opportunity to have the time to develop initial ideas further. I suspect the new work will have a different feel to it, especially after the progress each of us made over the month as artists-in-residence in the Banff Centre.

McMullen Gallery, Articulation's Urban Textures

This is Articulation member Wendy Klotz's work in the Urban Textures exhibition in the University of Alberta Hospital McMullen Gallery.

'Winterized Winnipeg, Saint Boniface, Confederation Life, and The Kelly Building'

'The Gates' Puzzle'
This work really suffers from my photography because it is made from silk that shimmers and looks so alive with lots of optical movement.

'The Kelly Building'

This is another interpretation of this building that Wendy did. This one is appliqued & quilted while the other one is silk screened and hand stitched to give a very different effect.

Urban Textures Opening

This is the 3rd work in Ingrid's 'Facade' series.


Ingrid's 'River City'

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The opening of Urban Textures

Ron drove up from Calgary for the opening & to pick up Katherine who had written her last exam that morning.

McMullen Gallery - Ingrid Lincoln's Work

These paired works, 'Night' and 'And Day', began as white cloth dyed through deconstructed screens. Multiple layers of techniques were used to build up the resulting depth of marks and texture.

2 works in her 'Facade' series.
As a long time Winnipegian, Ingrid has an intimate understanding of her city.

Walls Talk

Walls Talk is finished - 120 hours of stitching!

John Dean is the photographer. He always does a superb job with my work.

There is lots of clear detail, which is important with this work, particularly because it is all about the materials. Click on the image to zoom in on the detail.
John can see light and he understands textiles are not watercolours. He deliberately sets up lights to make shadows. These images have shadows to show the texture which is one of the most distinctive elements of fibre art.

John's colours are true. Compare his images with my snaps in previous Walls Talk posts.

Walls Talk

Working on building up the focal point of the wall.

This is a large fossil form caught in the stone.


I will have to move the stone blocks around, remaking the wall each time to find the most pleasing arrangement.
Block #7 is having a bubble bath.
I used a lot of old yarns, worn clothing torn into strips and threads that have waited a long time for their day. Also, I dragged these blocks to many places to work on them whenever I could. One day, while sitting on a boat stitching, we both got covered by a salty wave. So they all needed a good wash before being blocked.

Hewing Stone

I am hewing the last stone for the Tyndall wall. Each day I have been washing and blocking a block once it looks as though it has enough of the detailed stitching.

But I won't really how much is enough until I can see all of the blocks laid out side by side as a wall.

Walls Talk Progress

One of the Walls Talk blocks told me it was finished so it went into a soapy bath for a good clean.

Then it was blocked, right side down, and left to dry.

I use a system of wires and pins to block stitching and knitting.

Walls Talk

I'm back stitching in earnst on my Walls Talk (I think that is its name). I have made 8 blocks of Tyndall stone to make the wall. I now have to add lots of detailed stitching to build up each block. Tyndall stone captured lots of different fossil forms so I'm working their shapes into the stone.

Tyndall Stone Wall

I am making a Tyndall Stone wall.

I have prepared my palette, just as Julia Caprara says to do. Torn strips of fabric...

..lengths of thick yarns, tapes, ribbons & threads are ready for building up in layers on the burlap base. I have 3 stone blocks under way. I'm not sure how many I will need to make a wall.
I'm now thinking the title should be something like 'Walls Talk'.

Progress with Stitching

I am adding on the 2nd layer to this Tyndall stone work by weaving in a variety of thick yarns & tapes. I want to show fossil/organic shapes that are preserved in the stone as record of the physical past -the 'stitched in stone' idea.
I also want to record the social history of Winnipeg, when people arrived and stayed while they 'outfitted' before continuing their journey west to their new homesteads. I am including materials that are reminders of what these homesteaders may have taken with them. I have woven in torn strips of bedsheets, felted wool yarns to suggest woollen blankets, women's head scarves, also Indonesian batik & Indian cotton to reference the different cultures that made up the population of the city.
With these 2 ideas going through my head as I work I haven't come up with a title yet that pulls them both together.