“Some of these works haven’t been seen for decades.”
So says Dr. Michele Hardy, curator of Prairie Interlace, an exhibition partnership between Nickle Galleries at the University of Calgary and MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina. Dr. Hardy and her colleagues, Julie Krueger and Timothy Long, conceived the project when a massive piece called Sun Ascending, made up of twenty-four tapestries, was donated to the MacKenzie Art Gallery by the owners of the TD Tower in Toronto where it was originally displayed.
“[T]he arrival of that piece,” says Dr. Hardy, “got Timothy to thinking ‘What else might be going around?’”
Sun Ascending is just one of sixty works by forty-seven artists in the Prairie Interlace exhibition making its next stop at Mann Art Gallery in Prince Albert before winding up in Regina at MacKenzie Art Gallery. Dates for each stop are on the exhibition’s website and Dr. Hardy is hopeful that participants will enjoy seeing not just the works themselves but also engage in the sense of change—and sense of humour—that were so much a part of their creation. With a focus on works created between 1960 and 2000, the energy and evolution of fibre art is palpable in this exhibit.
“Textile’s superpower,” says Mackenzie Kelly-Frère, “is that it’s immediate. Everyone knows it.”
As an artist and faculty member at the Alberta University of the Arts, Kelly-Frére has guided several groups through the exhibition—students and members of the public, including his own parents. “I may not have given as many tours as Dr. Hardy,” he says with a laugh, “but it has to be close.”
For anyone who might find art galleries intimidating, Prairie Interlace is accessible because the materials are so much a part of our lives.
“Anyone who came to the exhibition was wearing clothes, after all,” says Kelly-Frère. “Looking at textiles in their recognizable format, like a quilt or a tapestry—it tells a story.”
“The million-dollar question is ‘Why should we care?’” says Dr. Hardy. “Globally, there was so much going on. Many breaking the mould—young feminists and women who saw fibre as something more than utilitarian.”
“They were breaking down perimeters, pushing beyond the loom.”
Katharine Dickerson’s West Coast Tree Stump. Twined, supplemental weft; jute, spindle-spun wool, burlap. Standing almost like an ancient obelisk, the scale of Katharine Dickerson’s work was inspiring. The ephemeral nature of the material used to create the work brought a sharp focus to the environmental and conservation concerns around the old-growth forest on the British Columbian coastline.
Walking into the gallery space on a cold, grey day, the works throw shards of colour across the floor and up the walls. Weavings by Pat Adams and Elaine Rounds, so clearly rooted in a prairie landscape, hang at the gallery entrance, immediately invoking a sense of place. Katharine Dickerson’s West Coast Tree Stump, giant and fuzzy, stands in splendid isolation while artist Phyllis Green’s iconic crocheted Boob Tree holds a spotlight.
Dr. Hardy smiles at Boob Tree.
“In 1975, the Winnipeg Art Gallery put together an exhibition that was about ‘woman as viewer,’” she says. “It was a challenge to another exhibit that featured women as objects in works done by men. Remember, this was when women were burning their bras and there was a lot of attention and controversy around women’s roles in the arts.”
Colourful and attention-grabbing, Boob Tree was on the gallery’s marketing posters and as they went up around the city; they just as quickly started disappearing, says Dr. Hardy. At first, organizers were concerned about vandalism, but it quickly became apparent that the posters were being stolen as keepsakes to decorate dorms, hallways and bedrooms throughout the university town.
“We haven’t been able to find a poster,” says Dr. Hardy with some regret. “I keep hoping one will pop out of the woodwork.”
Winter Tree by Charlotte Lindgren, weaving; wool and wire. Created in black wool, this piece is a timeless and serene interpretation of the bare trees dotting the prairie landscape.
The tiny, jumbled sweaters that make up Aganetha Dyck’s Close Knit are all far from traditional ideas of fibre art, both in form and in technique. Dyck’s preferred tool was a wringer washer. Arranged in two overlapping lines on the floor, shrunken sweaters serve as an examination of family ties and the value of invisible domestic labour.
Close Knit by Aganetha Dyck, felting. This collection of discarded, overlapping shrunken sweaters is the artist’s meditation on the value of domestic work.
Dr. Hardy explains that Prairie Interlace collected works that focused on four specific themes: body politics, soft power, elemental landscapes, and working off the grid.
“Each theme was about recognizing fibre as a potent medium,” she says. “That said, one of the things we are particularly concerned about is that artists working with fibre don’t have the same opportunities as painters or sculptors.”
Marginalized communities are included, with works done by Indigenous artists including some hooked wool rugs with saturated colours and strong shapes meant to call to mind the traditional tipi designs of the Plains peoples. Although touching the work isn’t permitted, the works are so lush and so vibrant it’s hard to resist—they almost seem to invite stroking. Other pieces have delicate filaments meant to catch the air and move gracefully while still others have hidden nooks and openings inviting a closer examination. Fibre art is engaging and provoking.
“There’s a breath in textiles—a porosity, a need for space,” says Dr. Hardy. “It’s not as passive an experience as looking at a painting. It is storytelling.”
All images credit Tara Klager, with permission from The Nickle Galleries.
