SEPTEMBER 12TH, 2018

So - finally the elephant has been birthed!  I dont know why this one was so difficult to resolve and get finished - well, I do know why, it was technically quite challenging.  

This is how it has been for quite a while.  The challenge was that I wanted to light up the picture of my grandfather as if you were seeing him deep in a tunnel of forgotten memory. I had originally wanted to have a motion sensor that would turn on the light when someone passed in front of it.  But the challenge was finding batteries that would last long enough that the people at the exhibition didn't have to change them every few days.  It is not always possible to plug things in, so I wanted to avoid the necessity of having a power outlet.

So this is how it has turned out.  There is a light switch button in the middle of the poppy on the left

Which the viewer will have to press.  Not ideal, but it should take so little power that the batteries hopefully will last the entire show.

This is the side view to show the "tunnel" idea.

Strategically placed poppies to hide the ugly joining mechanism.  However it was necessary to be able to take the whole thing apart so that it can be packed flat into an art portfolio case. The poppies hide the nuts and bolts that hold things together.

Another poppy with the press button in the centre.

Here's hoping Air Canada will treat the box very gently and it will arrive in tact in Victoria. I am excited to help hang the show monday and see it all together in one location.  Having seen bits and pieces of the rest of the group's art work - it will be very fun to see how the finished items look together. 

We will be giving artists tours during the week, so I do hope if anyone has friends likely to be in the area any time from Tuesday until the end of November, you will call in and see the exhibition.

SEPTEMBER 4TH

Articulation Textile Group, of which I am a member, have been working on our most recent body of work for exhibition.  Instead of focusing on a landscape theme, this time we each, as individuals, reflected on how war has personally affected us.  For me, I focused on my father's father.  He died when my father was only an infant, and he subsequently grew up without the love and direction of his father.He did well for himself, he was bright and got a good education and became the managing director of the company he worked for, for years. We had a good life.

When my parents died, within eight months of each other, I came across the letters my grandfather had sent my grandmother during the War, together with other memorabilia, and the letter informing my grandmother of his death. After getting on line and doing some research, I gradually learned more about this young man  who had left such a hole in his family.  My husband and I went to Belgium, to see his grave and then went to Ypres to the Flanders Field Museum.  It was a profound experience, the entire trip.  My work,has been greatly influenced by it.

Our work will be exhibited at the Sidney Museum on Vancouver Island.

This piece is called A Blanket for my Grandfather and the poppies reflect the number of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who are direct descendants of my grandfather. It was made to lie on his grave in Spierre churchyard.  Instead of leaving it there, I instead made one felt poppy and left it on his grave. I hope it is still there.

This is A Message of Peace.  It is in Morse Code, a universal language, of a passage from the Old Testament.  Isaiah is a revered Prophet in the Christian, Jewish and Islamic tradition. This passage he wrote of Peace has been written in many different languages, Maybe translating it into Morse Code will reach even more people.

News from the Front: I found the letter informing my grandmother of my grandfather's death. This is a copy of  a huge photograph of my grandfather that hung in my grandmother's tiny living room, until the day she died.  The twenty poppies denote his age when he was killed. 

So Many Crosses is an interactive piece, where the audience is invited to add a few more stitches in the knitting to remember a loved one killed in the many wars since and including the First World War. I was involved in a project in Calgary, knitting poppies to be added to thousands of others that will be hung from the Cathedral's spire this Remembrance Day.  I was on a roll, knitting poppies when I realized they were the perfect embellishment for the stool where people can sit and knit.

I have one more piece, which has been giving me trouble finishing it off.  It is completely made apart for an illumination device which I have been fiddling with for ages.  I have to come to a decision and get this done so it is ready to take with me to the exhibition. Why is it some pieces just come out fully formed and easy to make, while others feel like birthing an elephant!

MATERIALITIES EXHIBITION AT ACAD

AUGUST 2018

Contextural members took part in the Materialities Exhibition this summer at Alberta College of Art and Design.  Both Contextural members and artists who had been participants in the Summer Residency program, participated in the end of the Residency exhibition.

I had spent the summer experimenting with natural dyeing.; a technique I have not really explored before.  I tried to use plants available to me in the garden or if they were abundant in the wild, I used some different wild plants.  Mostly I used plants available in my garden.

The end of year piece, which I called "COLOURS OF HOME"  was made up of a background nuno felted piece, on which I embroidered leaves with natural dyed thread, mostly silk.  The three pieces of organza I eco printed with rose leaves and various rose petals and peony leaves and petals.  The pot that I boiled the bundled fabric in had a layer of apple and peony leaves, together with some rusty metals chains.

The leaves were cut out of all the samples of different dye samples that I had made over the summer.
My conclusion at the end of my experimenting was that there are a lot of different yellow, beige and brown dyes, available from plants.  I have yet to add different after effect to my samples, which should give me some more greens probably.  However, I was quite pleased with the beautiful colours that I thought looked quite lovely together even though many colours of the spectrum were absent.

ARTICULATION TRIP TO WASKESIU SASKATCHEWAN

AUGUST, 2018

Just returned from our Articulation Meeting in Waskesiu.  We stayed at Elk Lodge, just outside the park.  It was a perfect place for our group to meet with lots of possibilities for both outings and time to get together in the cabin to work on projects, talk and eat, and have our annual general meeting.  There were also facilities for manicures and pedicures, swimming and places to hike as well as a couple of restaurants when we wanted a change from cooking.

We went on a trip about an hour north of Waskesiu to La Ronge.  The lake was beautiful and so nice to be away from the smoke of Calgary.  

We talked to a lady, loading up the plane to travel to a camp way up north where she was going to cook for a camp of geologists.

Looks like a sculpture, rather than a piece of old metal!

We went on a tour of a wild rice processing plant.  I bought some rice to bring home, and it is the best I have ever had.  Delicious.

A Canada 150 frame at Waskesiu lake.

Our usual group photo, with one missing unfortunately.  Notice several of us had a manicure!

We went to the new Remai Modern Museum in Saskatoon.  It is a beautiful building.

Very interesting touches everywhere.