Prairie Interlace
Modernism provoked an explosion of innovative weaving in Western Canada.
Eva Heller, “Heat,”1983
wool and cotton shaped tapestry, 91” x 149” x 2” (collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, photo by Dave Brown, LCR PhotoServices)
Radical acts of weaving, stitching and unravelling are the focus of an ambitious new exhibition, Prairie Interlace: Weaving, Modernisms and the Expanded Frame, 1960-2000, on view until Dec. 17 at Nickle Galleries in Calgary.
Created in partnership with the Mackenzie Art Gallery in Regina, the touring show features 60 works by 48 artists, including settlers, immigrants, Indigenous people and influential visitors. A related symposium and forthcoming book will examine how modernism provoked an explosion of innovative textile-based art across the Canadian prairies. The project is organized by Nickle curator Michele Hardy with Timothy Long, the MacKenzie's head curator, and independent curator Julia Krueger.
While textile art has existed for millennia, the art world has often devalued it, labelling it as “women’s work” or creating hierarchies that place craft below painting and sculpture. This show rejects that artificial divide, presenting art that is simultaneously beautiful, clever and purposeful. It shines a light on artists who embrace their craft while asserting complicated ideas, formal innovations and material experimentation.
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“Prairie Interlace: Weaving, Modernisms and the Expanded Frame, 1960-2000,” 2022
installation view at Nickle Galleries, University of Calgary (photo by Dave Brown, LCR PhotoServices)
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“Prairie Interlace: Weaving, Modernisms and the Expanded Frame, 1960-2000,” 2022
installation view at Nickle Galleries, University of Calgary (photo by Dave Brown, LCR PhotoServices)
The Nickle, with its high ceiling, cement walls and grey-carpeted floors, is the perfect backdrop for this groundbreaking survey, allowing intimate engagement with smaller pieces but also ample space for monumental works.
Heat, for example, a large tapestry inspired by Alberta’s sunshine and grassy plains, provides undulating waves of red, orange and yellow wool punctuated by various greys. It was created by Eva Heller, who came to Lethbridge from Poland in 1981.
Ann Hamilton, “Untitled,” 1979
cotton, sisal and wool weaving, 103” x 98” (collection of Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for the Arts photo by Dave Brown, LCR PhotoServices)
The prairie landscape is diversely explored throughout the show. An untitled work by American artist Ann Hamilton looks like a minimalist colour-field painting but, on closer inspection, reveals a tight weave of golden sisal accented by loose, wispy threads. It evokes wheat fields dancing in a prairie breeze. Many artists in the exhibition either attended or taught at the Banff Centre for the Arts, including Hamilton, who studied weaving there before attending Yale University.
William Perehudoff, “Untitled Tapestry (Loeb Commission),” 1976
acrylic, cotton and latex, punch hooked, 48” x 63” (collection of Confederation Centre of the Arts, Charlottetown, photo by Dave Brown, LCR PhotoServices)
Works in the show both embody and defy modernism, which emphasized simplicity, clean lines and unembellished surfaces. The tensions between modernism and craft are aptly, if not ironically, revealed in Untitled Tapestry (Loeb Commission) by William Perehudoff, a Saskatchewan formalist painter, who based it on one of his paper collages. While his geometric composition retains its “hard edges,” the work is curiously softened.
Aganetha Dyck, “Close Knit,” 1976
wool felting via wringer washing machine, 14” x 35” x 154” (collection of SK Arts 2022-074, photo by Dave Brown, LCR PhotoServices)
While the show demonstrates an interest in abstraction, some artists incorporate human figures, textual elements, natural forms and Indigenous symbols. In Close Knit, for example, Manitoba artist Aganetha Dyck brazenly collides laundry with minimalist sculpture. Her shrunken wool sweaters, snuggled close, assert both warmth and a feminist perspective on the value of domestic labour.
Margaret Harrison, “Margaret’s Rug,” circa 2005
hooked rug of recycled wool sweaters, T-shirts and silk on burlap, 22” x 39” (private collection, photo by Dave Brown, LCR PhotoServices)
Elsewhere, look for Saskatchewan artist Ann Newdigate’s painterly tapestries, Calgary-based Mary Scott’s lavishly embroidered silk paintings, and Métis artist Margaret Harrison’s intricate hooked rugs, which use recycled clothes to depict her home in Saskatchewan’s Qu’Appelle Valley. While many artists in the show studied weaving, some shifted to different fibre practices. Others, including Scott, began as painters and later shifted to textiles.
Overall, this stunning 40-year survey offers an eye-opening glimpse into a surprisingly varied and prolific array of work largely produced by women, many of whom have received little prior attention. ■
Prairie Interlace: Weaving, Modernisms and the Expanded Frame, 1960-2000 at Nickle Galleries, University of Calgary, Sept. 9 to Dec. 17, 2022.
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Nickle Galleries
410 University Court NW, Taylor Family Digital Library, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4
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