'Walls Talk's' Narrative

'Walls Talk' has come back from South Korea where it was in the Canadian pavilion at the 2009 Cheongju International Craft Biennale.
It is made up of panels in the same Julia Caprara technique as 'Meadow' but in this work it is the actual materials that tell the story.
The theme of the Canadian exhibition at the biennale was 'Unity and Diversity.' With this work I commented on the nature of Canada's population and geology in those terms.

This is the artist statement for the work.

A wall is built of Tyndall stone, distinctive and unique to Canada. Fibre is stitched to suggest the myriad of marine life in the vast sea that covered central Canada, now captured in limestone. Also known as Tapestry Stone, the blocks tell the story of European settlement of western Canada.
Unlike traditional Fibre craft work, where the emphasis has been on the demonstration of mastery of technique, I have worked with minimal technique to focus on the materials as content. I acknowledge the intrinsic meanings in each textile to provoke the viewer's memories of their own textile experiences. My goal is to stimulate a dialogue between the work and the viewer.

The theme of unity and diversity is found in several levels of the work. The diversity of marine life is unified and preserved in stone as geological history. The diversity of fibres and textiles reads as a stone wall, while closer attention reveals the complex fabric of Canadian society, reference to its social history and deference to its acceptance of cultural diversity within a unified country.

'Meadow's' Narrative

This work is another in a series where i have been using a technique developed by the co-founder and co-principal of the Opus School of Textile Arts, Julia Caprara. (Since Julia's death the school is known as the Julia Caprara School of Textile Arts, of which I am a student)
.Julia published a series of articles in Quilting Arts magazine where she demonstrated several of her distinctive techniques, if you want to see how this work is done.

This work has two stories, one from my interests as a geographer and the other from my interest in the Blackfoot Nation's stories.

The Fireweed plant is known as a 'first coloniser' after an area has been disturbed by natural occurrences such as avalanches, floods, fires and man-made disturbances such as forestry, road works, urban development. Fireweed moves in and stabilises the ground so other plants can then take root.

I have continued to explore this natural process of succession and how humans fit in with it as a concept in some of the new work to be shown in Calgary next week.

At another level, i see the Fireweed as an enabler and nurturer of others, a traditional role taken on by women in our society, which is why it is appropriate for the work to be made from fabric and thread and stitched, traditionally the media used by women in their homes.

The second story comes form the Blackfoot people. A woman went to a campsite of a group of braves who had captured and tied up her lover. She started a fire in the prairie grasses at one end of the camp to distract the braves and ran around to the other side of the camp to untie and rescue her lover. They both then ran across the prairies and headed for the mountains.
When the braves had worked out how they had been tricked, they started to chase the couple. They were gaining on the couple until they came across a string of fires that blocked their way. The fires sprang up where ever the woman's moccasins touched the ground and so protected them from getting caught. After the fires died down Fireweed grew in the place of her footsteps.

If you look at any image of the Fireweed you will see magenta flowers and blue-green leaves. In this work i really pushed the intensity of these colours because i wanted it to appear strong and full of life.

Provisioning's Narrative

Yesterday i put 77lbs of art (plus box) on a Greyhound bus, bound for Calgary and the Calgary Quilt Association Biennial Conference in the Telus Convention Centre. Articulation has been invited as special guests to put on a huge display of their work, most of it never seen before in Calgary and a whole body of work inspired by Vancouver Island's rain forest ecosystem that hasn't been seen by the public yet. In fact, Articulation members haven't even seen this work together yet. It is always exciting to bring new works together for the first time, knowing they have all been inspired by the same location.
I can't talk about this new work yet but i can tell you the narrative of one of my works that has been shown in Winnipeg.

'Provisioning' was inspired by Articulation's study week in Winnipeg. During our research in the streets and buildings of Winnipeg, I noticed how important textiles had been in the development of Winnipeg as the 'gateway to the west' and how  the city went on to become one of the wealthiest cities in North America from 1880 to 1920. Yet, I couldn't find out very much about the people who made these textiles. It seems their contribution has not been recorded.
'Provisioning' is my tribute to those unsung, unknown textile works who made such a valuable contribution to the success and wealth of Winnipeg.

Textiles were needed to carry the dried food staples and animal feed for Europeans to be able to survive a year on their allocated block of land before they could claim it as theirs. Textiles were needed to hold the valuable seeds of the first crop to be planted on the land. Blankets and furs kept the immigrants alive during long sub-zero winters. A multitude of domestic linens were used to run households where we now use plastics and disposables. Clothing was woven and knit in the home, if one had the skills or couldn't afford to purchase. Businesses set up in Winnipeg to provide families with all of these vital textiles.
Women did 'fancy work' to beautify their homes, such as table cloths and doilies to protect the few pieces of furniture they had.
There is a lot more to this story in 'Provisioning'.
If you would like to learn more or you would like to share with me your family's 'Provisioning' story, which i would love to hear, come down to the Telus Convention Centre, April 27 to May 1st. I will be there most days. I'll post here the actual times and when i am scheduled to give an official 'artist talk'.

Doing Laundry

During this break between semesters i had planned to do all sorts of catch-up things - the list is long!
But, instead, I find myself either immersed in a book or doing laundry.
I am laundering my collection of domestic linens and I am finding it calming.

This is an expertly knit doilie. i should have taken the 'before' photo because it was a stained rag that looked as though the dog had played with it. I soaked and washed it so all stains came out. Then blocked it so it grew another 3rd in size.

And here it is returned to its true beauty.

Now onto transforming some worn, stained, hand-made damask towels a friend picked up for me.

Strip Woven Blanket

A friend gave me this lovely blanket. She has a much larger one displayed on a wall and it looks magnificent.
We are both curious to find out any information about this style of blanket.
It is woven in long strips then sewn together. The fibre is coarse, like goat hair.

The yellow and red colours here are woven in.....

...while the spots of colour are stitched in after the weaving is done.

The back shows the carrying of the thread as each area is stitched.
The stitched areas appear to be worked in a much softer fibre, like wool.

Does anyone recognise this style of weaving and can tell us anything about it?

Tony Bounsall Textile Art Photographer

That's what I call him any way. Tony actually has many skills and talents but I call him a textile photographer because he did such an excellent job making digital images of my work. I had to hunt all over Victoria carrying my work with me visiting a number of different photographer's studios before I found someone who understood what I needed.
I am pleased with the soft shadows that highlight the textures and the clarity of the details.
Thanks Tony.

This work is one I will be packaging up tomorrow in preparation for sending to Calgary for the Canadian Quilt Association Biennial Conference in the Telus Convention Centre. It will be in the area where Articulation, as special guests, will have 8 booths full of work.
If you are in Calgary any time between Tuesday 27th April and Saturday 1st May, I do hope you can come downtown and visit us.
There will be 7 Articulation members in town over the week and present in the booth area at all times when the show is open.
Any one of us can give you a guided tour of the work, just ask. If you don't, we will ask you if you would like to know anything about the works.

This work of mine, that Tony did such a good job of photographing, is called 'Provisioning'. If you come down to the Convention Centre I'll tell you all about it. Its got its own story.

Reading

Read this book all day, and finished it.
A great follow up to the previous book on the history of marriage.
Also did lots of gardening today.
I am pulling out invasive species, unwanted guests who have overstayed their welcome. A subject of one of my dialogues.

Martha Cole and Dialogue

This weekend I went to see Martha Cole and her latest work at an open house in Gloria Daly's studio. Martha had taught a book making class there the previous week so we were able to look at the students books as well as Martha's books.
Martha is a world authority on paste paper and their use in book making.
The image shows her 2 of her latest experiments (in her hands and the purpley one on the wall). She is next going to work on  this stitch-paint technique at a much larger scale.
Her work is inspirational and she is a wonderful person.

There was much excitement at home this past week when a severe weather system blew across the west coast. Our trees were blown around and lost small branches but no damage done. I do enjoy a hearty storm.
After the storm I was delighted to see the contributions the trees had made to the dialogue I presently have set up.

There was lots of communication about the storm.

With the rain and warmer weather the grass is growing vigorously.

Clean Up and Dialogue

Now that i have sent this semester's module of work to the UK for assessment it is time to clean up my studio. All of the left over yarn that i had hauled out, i sorted by hue. I have all of my yarns and threads sorted into 24 different hues, each with their own box. I call these boxes my palette. i find sorting yarns like this helps keep my eye for colour in practice.

The dialogue where I staked doilies out under the trees is coming along.

After 10 days it looked like this.

While the agricultural cloth looked like this.

Dialogue Gardening vs Nurturing

This is another dialogue i have going on with a Douglas-fir and an arbutus.

I staked out under these 2 trees a grid of round knit and crochet doilies and squares of agricultural cloth.

I was anticipating the plants in the ground would grow up through the knitting/crochet....

...and be suppressed by the agricultural cloth.
This dialogue is still in place. i didn't send it to the UK with the rest of my work because i haven't responded to it yet except to photograph changes regularly.

Dialogue 2 My Turn

Once I had dried the cloth and sealed it with a workable fixative, I pinned it to a frame and waited for a windy day.

When the wind came I raced outside with a bottle of brown ink and tried dipping Douglas-fir needles then holding up the framed cloth for the inked needles to draw on it.

But I found the needles couldn't hold enough ink to leave enough of a line on fabric. With previous sampling I had the needles draw on soft paper and it worked very well.

So I rushed inside, hoping the wind was going to hang around, found a small brush and some wire and ran out to the tree again.

I wired the brush tip to the branch, dipped the bristles and held up the framed cloth.



It worked much better with the brush being able to hold more ink.

I think I got so into co-operating with the tree that I overdid the amount of drawing.

But the tree had a lot to say.










Worm casts had stuck to the cloth even after it was dried.

I didn't like these lumps of dirt because bits of them kept dropping whenever I handled the cloth.

So I brushed them off.












Some of the bigger 'bits' were not being held by the fixative and I wanted to keep them on the cloth.

So as my next response, after the tree did its drawing, was to secure the leaves and tree shoots with various types of stitching: closed herringbone, cross stitch, whipping.

I forgot to take a photograph of this stitching before I sent it off to my tutor in the UK. I'll post images it once I get the work back.

Dialogue 2 Continues

After cutting about 15 smaller squares off the cloth, I uncovered the remainder.





There is quite a lot of grey staining and some other brighter coloured marks





Maple tree seeds had sprouted through the cloth in several places.





Once the cloth was dry these shoots withered and stuck to the cloth.



Now it is my turn to respond.




I pinned the cloth on the wall and looked at it for a few days......