Articulation's Current Exhibition Connected Heritage, Gimli, Manitoba

The exhibition is on all summer at the New Icelandic Heritage Museum in Gimli Manitoba.

 Research for this body of work began with a study session covering Winnipeg, Gimli and the Inter-Lake area of Lake Winnipeg. I posted earlier about the trip here and here. When we Articulation members were back in our respective studios, we got to work sifting through all our research materials narrowing down a mass of images, stories and information to a focus which caught our imaginations enough to want to go deeper while being guided by the "Connected Heritage" concept the group had settled on.

While out and about exploring I was enamored with the boats and the unique way of fishing. The Icelandic people had brought with them their way of fishing and learned from the First Nations people how to adapt from the sea to an inland lake. Other settlers such as the Ukrainians and Scots also contributed their knowledge to make InterLake fishing the unique industry it became.

And I loved everything about the Icelandic horses. I watched all of the movies I could find where they starred and I found several documentaries on them.

But as is usual for me after an Articulation Study Session, once I got home and into my studio, my interest was piqued by a different subject. Part of my ongoing research involved reading about the history of the Icelandic people and I focused on their unique DNA heritage that has been studied in great detail. A long isolated human population with written records going back centuries can tell geneticists a lot. This knowledge can be applied to the benefit of other populations, for example, understanding the origins of genetic diseases enables diagnostics tests and drugs to be developed.

I became intrigued with the way a group carries its genetic identity with them no matter where they settle and their cultural identity is carried in their material possessions.

Recent genetic research has confirmed what the sagas have been saying for generations. Genetic research has come up with the statistics. Seventy-five percent of the males in the founding population was Scandinavian, mainly Norsemen. Fifty percent of the founding females were Celtic from the western coastal areas of the UK. It seems the bachelor Norsemen picked up Celtic wives before heading across the sea to settle in Iceland.

The Icelanders brought this genetic heritage with them when they settled in the Canadian Inter-Lake area. They also brought their cultural identity embedded in the few possessions they brought with them.

I decided to work with well-worn woolen blankets, essential items they may have brought with them. I projected an image of an old woodblock print onto the blanket then cut the image away suggesting how their cultural identity is embedded in their material culture.

Stitching the design

Cutting out the design to show the backing blanket

Blanket stitching around the design lines

Genetic research has noted people of Icelandic descent are very likely to have blue or rarer green eyes: 89% of males and 87% of females, with green eyes being more common in the women.

 

 I illustrated this genetic trait by colouring the male's eye blue and the female's green. This genetic trait is still very evident in the current population.

Each Articulation member explored a different aspect of the Interlake population. Visit Articulation's Blog here to see what others have worked on.

If you find yourself in Manitoba this summer, I do hope you can take a trip out to Gimli to see this very interesting exhibition and to take in the sights in this unique town.

WAR: A Personal Response, Body of Work, 'Friend or Foe'

Friend or Foe

linen, cotton, wood, metal; laundering, hand stitching, painting, installation

Domestic teatowels made of linen or cotton have been surprisingly uniform in size over the last ninety plus years. Perhaps they are the width of a household table loom.

Previously they were all woven in the home now they are mostly machine woven and printed. The majority of printed teatowel themes are limited, remarkably, to four subjects: a prayer, an uplifting saying, a calendar or a momemto of place for the emigrant or tourist.

For this work, I chose two different linen tea towels featuring the same prayer - 'Bless this house Oh Lord we pray. Make it safe by night and day.' They also have calendars for different years in the 1970s. 

I added the silhouettes of two WWII planes, one the Allies' Avro Lancaster and the other the Reich's Heinkel HE 177. The bomber planes look as though they are zeroing in on the houses, highlighting the significance of the prayer.

Plane spotting was a skill of memory and fast recognition developed by psychologists during the war once they realised fast and accurate recognition of airborne planes saved lives. They found rather than doing a laborious detailed analysis other parts of the brain could be used for rapid assessment of the shape, engine sound, and markings of planes overhead. Sheets of plane silhouettes were issued to military personnel for plane spotting training and members of the public were encouraged to learn them as well.

A short video to show the distinctive sound and shape of the Lancaster. Sorry about the ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTQIUEa4cqA 

With three of Florence's sons in the airforce, I image it became a household game to be the first to correctly identify a plane overhead. 

I also imagine Florence outside hanging out her washing and hearing a plane. She would search the skies to identify it as a friend or foe. Was it one of her sons in-training taking the chance to fly over his home and say hi to his mother with a dip of the plane's wing or was it an enemy plane, a scout or the beginning of an enemy invasion?

The routine domestic task of hanging out laundry was yet another trauma trigger capable of switching Florence's emotions to a surge of joy stimulated by the mother-child bond and just as quickly her emotions could plunge downward in fear. She would become exhausted by the repeated involuntary acute stress response known as fight or flight.

I changed the dates to 1943 and 1944, the years Florence's oldest son flew Lancaster bombers.

This is the work's story I told in the Sidney exhibition booklet

'Plane spotting was an activity the War Office encouraged the public to practice. War psychologists knew that when the skills of memory and fast recognition developed in the civilian population it saved lives. Recognition posters were issued to aid in aircraft identification. I can imagine Florence's four sons making a game of plane spotting, and she too learned the skill. When she heard a plane while at her clothesline she would say a silent prayer asking God to protect her three sons in the airforce. Then her mind with flip with fear at the possibility of it being an enemy plane and the beginning of an invasion. It was only after researching this work that I realised the significance of my father's enjoyment in taking his family to airfields for picnics. He had continued to hone his plane spotting skills and taught his children to recognise planes by engine sound and silhouette.'

WAR: A Personal Response, Body of Work, 'Grief Redacted'

Grief Redacted

Vintage linen tablecloth, cotton thread; hand embroidered.

For my installation in Articulation's 'WAR: A Personal Response' exhibition I have recreated my grandmother's living room to reflect her mental state during WWI, WWII and the following years. I believe she suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) most of her adult life. The room I have created tells her story.

Grief Redacted is a tablecloth laid on a table set for tea. The colour of the embroidery chronicles her decline into PTSD.

Stitching on a boat.

The cloth chronicles my grandmother Florence's life so I decided to make it a part of my life. I took it with me where ever I went and worked on it whenever I could.

Stitching on the Coho ferry en route to the USA.

Stitching on a riverboat in the Malaysian Highlands.

PTSD symptoms unrecognized and untreated can be passed on to future generations. Florence's great-granddaughter Elizabeth added her stitches to the cloth. In total nine of Florence's descendants worked on the cloth to illustrate the wide-ranging and long-term effects of PTSD within a family.

The brightly coloured flowers reflect Florence's happy relationship with her high school sweetheart until he headed off to war. The flowers turn black from worry as she waited. After his joyful return, their marriage and the births of their 4 sons, the colour returned to flowers. Following the tragedy of her "shell-shocked" husband committing suicide, three sons joining the Air Force and the oldest son dying in a plane crash, she stitched only in black. Guided by her religion, bound by nationalistic cries of 'for God and country' and deep down being tormented by humanist feelings of guilt and shame, Florence suffered from PTSD as the battle raged within her home.

Links to works by other Articulation artists in the 'WAR: A Personal Response' exhibition:

Donna Clement here

Wendy Klotz here

Amanda Onchulenko here

New Work: Responding to Trees with Stitch

This work began with a cloth that was buried in the soil beside a Douglas-fir tree. Before the cloth began to decay I dug it up.

It was now my turn to respond to the cloth. 

I liked the bits of leaves stuck to the cloth so stitched over some of them to hold them in place.

Now it was the tree's turn to respond. 

When the cloth was dry I stretched it on a hoop and waited for a windy day. When that day arrived I raced out and tied a little paintbrush to the end of a branch. I dipped the brush into a bottle of ink then held the hooped cloth up to the brush. While the wind blew the branch around the ink-filled brush drew on the cloth - a wind drawing.

Now it was my turn to respond again.

It was time for me to add more stitch to respond to the tree's wind drawing.

The cloth needed a backing to support the stitching I had in mind.

I selected a bedsheet stained during its time wrapped around the trunk of the tree.

I found another unstained bedsheet to give a firmer cloth to stitch into.

I trialled different bedsheets to get enough contrast between the 3 cloths. Even though the colours are soft and subtle, contrast between the different cloths is still needed. 

I used my camera to take black and white photographs to check the value contrast between the different sheets before I settled on this combination.

I wanted to show the little branchlets that break off the Douglas-fir tree during a wind storm.

I went though my large bin of 'white' thread to find just the right ones.

I went outside to find one of these branchlets and made lots of drawings of it until my hands knew the angle at which the needles came out of the branch.

Next, I stitched some samples, trialling different stitch combinations. I settled on a made-up version of couching though no doubt someone somewhere has invented this stitch before. I call it a long-armed couching stitch.

Now I have to settle down and stitch every day to make sure I keep the rhythm going and keep remembering my intention with this work.

Backyard Project and Work in the Studio

Ron and Nordic Fencing team leader, Mat, plan the location of the deer fence along the south boundary.

Nathan is digging trenches for irrigation pipes.

The main pipe will be located under the path going around the pergola and arbor. If there is ever a problem with the pipe it can be dug up without disturbing any garden beds.

Meanwhile, I am collecting leaf skeletons from under the tulip trees.

The damp conditions are ideal for the soft parts of the leaf to rot away leaving the leaf skeleton in tact.

After washing and laying the leaves out to dry...

...I am sewing them onto an embroidered afternoon tea cloth that spent a year or so outside wrapped around a tree trunk. I have been adding leaves to this cloth for the past couple of years. The repair of the decayed cloth with darned leaves speaks of how leaves fall to nourish and repair the soil, the skin of the earth. I will keep adding to the cloth for another season or so to demonstrate how soil building is a long term continual process.

The work is called, 'Earth Repair.'

The hyacinths are blooming in the studio bed. There is such a lovely smell as I come and go from the Green Shed.

Now that the winter rains have eased we can continue with the Backyard Project tasks

Textile Treasures Exhibition - Mark Makers at Tulista Gallery, Sidney

The Mark Makers are exhibiting again!

Here is a peek at what they have produced over the past couple of years.

This is the view as one walks into the gallery - wearable art and 2D and 3D wet felt.

To the right are the results of a challenge to produce interpretations of the Melford Messenger Bag with a focus on upcycling, recycling and embellishment.

To the left - 2 different ways of working on top of a printed image.

Wet felted wall hanging, upcycled jacquard linen table cloth transformed into a blouse, embellished bags. 

Exploring the water and sky themes.

Upcycled pillows, soft sculptures and wearable art.

Hand and machine stitched framed wall pieces.

Art dolls, soft sculpture, wet felted forms.

Wet felted hats, scarf, bag, neck art.

Hand and machine 2D and 3D fibre art.

The alcove has a display of old traditional, handmade textiles from the 5 continents. They illustrate the history, techniques and skill mastery behind the Mark Makers' work.

This is just a taste of what is on display at the Tulista Gallery in Sidney, until May 1st.

There will be artists in attendance every day to answer your questions and to tell you the stories.