Entwined & Entangled

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Cynthia Stratulat, "Stop Dragging my Heart Around," 2023

wool, silk, cotton, beads and buttons, 37" x 27”. Courtesy of the Leighton Art Centre.

Opening Reception: June 24, 2023, between 1 and 4 pm. Remarks will be held at 2 pm.

Entwined & Entangled celebrates contemporary fibre arts, creative collaboration, and a half century of shared history between the Sheep Creek Weavers Fibre Arts Guild and Leighton Art Centre.

For millennia, fibre artists have entangled their personal dreams and schemes into fabric, entwining yarn and other fibres with needles, hooks, and looms into beauty and functionality. The artists of the Sheep Creek Weavers fibre arts guild continue this tradition.

The Sheep Creek Weavers Fibre Arts Guild, founded in 1974 (the same year that Leighton Art Centre was incorporated as a non-profit), began with an emphasis on weaving. Today the guild is a diverse community of spinners, weavers, knitters, felters, quilters, crocheters, dyers, rug hookers, and hand-sewers who create conceptual pieces as well as crafting practical household items and wearable art.

Entwined & Entangled reflects the founding principles of the guild: creating, educating, and celebrating fibre arts. It features works by individual guild artists as well as collaborative group pieces and installations. Inspiration for the pieces is diverse and ranges from the ever-changing landscape of the Alberta foothills to personal memories, shared experiences, myths, and even dreams.

Over the course of the exhibition, guild members will host demonstrations and hands-on activities for the public during Fibre Demo Days events at Leighton Art Centre (https://leightoncentre.org/sheep-creek-weavers-fibre-demo-days/). As an educational outreach project for kids aged 6-14, several exhibiting artists will be helping to lead a fibre arts project during two weeks of the centre’s Art & Nature summer day camps. And throughout the exhibition, The Shop at Leighton Art Centre will offer an abundance of hand-crafted items created for sale by members of the guild.