Auction House Lot- Finland Arabia, Russian plate, textiles

There was a collection of other things in the box I won at the auction.

A large printed table cloth and 2 plates....

One is a rather lovely painted, wooden plate from Russia (I'm guessing) and a Finnish Arabia plate, produced between 1971 and 1975.

...and this odd assortment.

These crocheted kitchen items were made using interesting techniques.

There was a collection of airline cutlery, most of the airlines now defunct. The previous owner appears to have had plans to polish all of the 'silver.' Yah for plastic airline cutlery, unless one likes 'polishing the silver.'

And that is it - all for $5!

Saints' Relics in Quebec City

Articulation visited many cathedrals, churches and chapels while in Quebec City.
Two were the most memorable for me. One was originally the Petit Seminaire of Quebec's chapel but now a deconsecrated building and incorporated into the Musee De L'Amerique Francophone.
My 1st reaction to the chapel was surprise when we discovered all the wood, marble and granite walls and ceilings are in fact sheet metal painted in the trompe-l'oeil style - a response to the earleir chapel being burnt down.
My 2nd response was to feel a bit creepy and fascinated at the same time.
It was my 1st experience of collected and displayed human body parts - reliqueries.

In amongst the rich gold work on velvet are the skeletal remains of saints.
The chapel has hundreds and hundreds of them.
In spite of feeling a bit repulsed I was drawn in to see how these bits of bone, hair and ashes are attached to the ground with stitch.

This reliquery I liked. I felt someone, or a group, really respected Saint Charles Borromee when they displayed his vestments so carefully then added a large gilt frame.

The work is full of items representing different things as well as pieces of his religious clothing. 

I hope there is a written record of what everything means and which parts of his life different items are referring to.

Articulation Visits the Ursuline Nuns Workshop and School Museum

Articulation's 2013 study session was in Quebec City. One of the highlights of the week was the time spent studying embroderies produced by the Ursuline nuns and their students.

They had specialised in producing heavily embroidered textiles for the Catholic churches and their priests.

Their main techniques were raised gold work and long and short stitch silk and wool thread painting.

'Alter Frontal : Holy Family at Rest', early 1700s.

Wool, silk, Japan gold, Japan silver, gold and silver with plate, purls and spangles on moire silk satin ground; bobbin lace.

2013 Surface Design Assoc Conference exhibitions

I have just returned from the SDA conference in San Antonio, Texas.
One of the best parts was getting to see lots of fibre art exhibitions.
One of my favourites was by Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga: A tradition of Strings.

Ng'endo cia Mugendi - The Immigrant's Journey, 2012
sheet metal, stainless steel wire; stitching with wire on textured sheet metal, colouration 

Naomi gave a inspiring talk about her work.
She explained how every aspect of her work is rooted within her culture and her life experiences.

Magnetha ma njahi - The Big Harvest, 2012
stainless steel wire, woven kiondo basket strips, recycled glass beads; stitching and crocheting with wire

I was fortunate to have a 3-day, pre-conference workshop in the a studio above the gallery so I was able to visit this exhibition many times.
It is very powerful work.

El Anatsui at the ROM

After the World of Threads exhibitions in Oakville, Articulation moved to Toronto to explore the city while waiting for more World of Threads exhibitions to open. We spent a morning at the Royal Ontario Museum.

The ROM highlight for me was to see a work by El Anatsui for the first time.
Called Straying Continents, it was commissioned for the ROM in 2010.

Using his signature material, liquor bottle caps, he has linked them to make a huge metal textile.

 What I hadn't noticed before, when looking at images of his work, is how he snips the metal caps into lengths to make a metal mesh-like textile which is much more open and flexible than the textile of round caps.

 The experience of viewing his work was better than I imagined.
The way he controls his medium to work at such a vast scale is inspiring.

Missa Magic 2012

Missa Magic 2012
MISSA is an annual gathering in the West Coast rain forest of like minded artists who work in all media. People come together to teach and learn from each other. What also happens is new friendships are formed, old friendships are more firmly cemented, networks are built up and one's community is expanded. Creativity is contagious and runs rampant throughout the campus.
MISSA is the tonic for your creative well being.

Technical Issues

While stitching I had to resolve technical issues involved in hanging the 4 tree cloths.
Husband Ron understands material and joint stresses.

He sampled various corner joints for the frame. I made the aesthetic decisions.
Using Douglas-fir wood supports the work's concepts.

We settled on this type of joint. 

Carpenter Chris Mead made the frame. 

Airline baggage limits dictate each side has to be cut in half.
Chris developed a strong, non-flexing joint.

Handwashing Day

Hand washing some of my thrift store finds and successful bids at auction houses.
2 fine wool shawls, one with beautiful, woven, floral border

Wool blanket - well used but laundered carefully over its life time so no sign of fulling.

Piece of old silk velvet in blue and gold - a little fragile but washed up well.

A friend found this treasure for me at a garage sale - a heavily metal embroidered, Indian made evening purse.

It was rejuvenated after a light vacuum and spot clean.
It is now in my closet because I'm going to enjoy using if for awhile.

Banff Mountain Building

I caught this mountain man on his way back from his coffee break. Just look at all of the safety equipment he has to wear. He looks like a mountain climber.

I zoomed right in with my little point 'n' shoot camera (so not a good quality image) to get a closer look at conditions on top of the mountain they are building. The billowing orange tarpaulins indicate how strong the wind is, which would drop the actual temperature the body felt. The low wind chill factor means exposed flesh freezes in seconds. Whatever the conditions, whenever I looked up to the top of this mountain, I saw these men working. Sometimes I couldn't see them very well because it was snowing so hard but they were still working.

Mutwa Embroidered Blouse

Another Mutwa embroidered blouse in the kungeroo style.

While visiting a village in the Kutch area we attended a workshop where we were shown how to use metallic thread to work the 2 main stitches shown on this blouse.

Embroidery from the Kutch

Metallic tape embroidered over a tie dyed fabric on this head shawl.

Newspaper is used as a pattern