Saint Anne's Pilgrims

Saint Anne is the oldest pilgrimage site in North America.

It all started when a builder working on the site found he didn't need his cane any more.
It was a miracle.

Since then many have travelled to Saint Anne praying for another miracle.

W alking aids strapped to the entrance pillars are evidence many more miracles have happened in Saint Anne.

 

 

'Testimony to pilgrim prayer and the healing powers associated with Saint-Anne-de-Beaupre.'

Quebec City - Door Study

Before I arrived in Quebec City I had thought I might do a door study.

And work with the symbolism and conceptual meanings associated with them.

Quebec City's doors are a tourist attraction.

I took the photographs but the ideas didn't flow. So no door study.
After 10 study sessions with Articulation and lots of preparation before each trip, I am still surprised by what catches my attention and the work that results. Each time it has never been what I initially thought I would focus on.

Old Quebec City Architecture

One of the enjoyable things about a visit to old Quebec City is to look up at the roof lines.

There is a lot of history told in the architecture

 

 

Looking down at the foundations shows stories of the past also.

 

Articulation members spent many hours exploring the streets of old Quebec City.
It will be interesting to see what features come out in their group body of work.

Saint Petersberg

This summer I went to Saint Petersberg, Russia

One of the most striking features of the city is the contrast in architecture.

 

 

It was such a pleasure to just wander around the city for days.

Articulation, Bridging Waters Exhibition

Here is my Postcards From Fundy series where I looked at the history of human settlement in the Bay of Fundy through the textiles the people made, wore and used.

When people entered the gallery Wendy Klotz's "Lost at Sea" work greeted them. It was so moving to talk to a man who had worked as a fisherman in Nova Scotia in his youth.
Wendy's work is about the statistic that as a Nova Scotian fisherman you are 19 times more likely to die on the job than any other occupation. She knitted 19 fish.

Miriam Birkenthal's 'Fundy Algae' caused most people to put their faces very close to the work to more clearly see the details in her bead work.

Wendy thread painted a series as a memorial to the now closed Bay of Fundy lighthouses.
Barbara McCaffrey made a series of small 3-dimensional studies of bivalve shells, found as ancient fossils in the Bay of Fundy and still found on beaches today.

Articulation's Upcoming Exhibition

After a successful 2012 tour of London, the Articulated Materials: Bridging Waters exhibition is touring across Canada in 2013-4.

Bay of Fundy Architecture
The first stop was earlier this year, in Winnipeg's Cre8ery Gallery http://www.cre8ery.com/, during the Embroiderers' Association of Canada's national seminar http://www.eac.ca/.

The Tide Is Out
The second stop will be in the Tulista Community Art Gallery, Sidney, Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
From the gallery windows one can see across Haro Strait to the USA, which makes it a most suitable place to exhibit work about 2 other bodies of water: the Bay of Fundy and the River Thames.

Saint Martins, Bay of Fundy
The exhibition will be open daily from September 1st to 14th, 10 am to 4 pm.

Hopewell Rocks, Bay of  Fundy
Material Girls, a fibre arts group based in London, UK, has joined with the Canadian-based fibre group, Articulation, to exhibit bodies of work responding to studies of their respective country's iconic waterways.

Articulated Materials: Bridging Waters Exhibition by Articulation and Material Girls

The 1st showing in Canada of the Articulated Materials: Bridging Waters exhibition opens in a month, at the Cre8ery Gallery in Winnipeg.

The name of the exhibition explains how the it came about and also it's content.

Articulated Materials - Articulation, a Canadian group of fibre artists teamed up with a similar group called Material Girls, based in London, UK, to produce separate bodies of work to be shown together.

Bridging Waters: Each group chose an iconic waterway in their respective country to research. Articulation chose the Bay of Fundy and Material Girls chose the River Thames.

The resulting bodies of work are both contemporary, personal responses to the water ways and they tell stories of the long history of human interaction with the physical environment.

The 'bridging' part happens when Articulation's work was sent to London and toured galleries over 2012, then was sent back to Canada with the Material Girls' work for a 3-gallery tour across Canada over 2014.

The 'bridging' also happens when the viewer makes connections between the two bodies of work.

Donna Clement designed the poster using an image of Ingrid Lincoln's work.

Both are Articulation members.

More Art Deco In Ranfurly?

The funny thing was only the hotel was promoted in the tourist brochures as being in the Art Deco style. With the Spanish styled tiled roof and metal balconies I didn't see it.

The columns were particularly off putting though the font of the hotel name is 1930s.

But once inside the old part I saw this magnificent Art Deco style ceiling that really played with the 'step' form.

3 inter-locking arched mirrors is so AD.

The light fixtures and female figure ornaments where characteristically in the AD style also.

But as far as the outside of the building, I think this rabbit hutch has more Art Deco features.

Art Deco in Ranfurly, New Zealand

When travelling I like to look out for Art Deco architecture and decorative arts.
While in the small town Ranfurly, in the centre of New Zealand's South Island, I came across some fine examples of Art Deco architecture in the main street.

 

 

The stepped roof line was a popular shape in buildings and motifs of that era.

Plain doors made elegant with a few simple lines.

Art Deco or the later Moderne style?

The stepped roof line suggests Art Deco.