6 minute read
Feature Gallery: Passages
Feature Gallery
Passages
October 6 – December 24, 2012
Passages is an exhibition that combines the projects of four artists exploring the concept of time and place using different techniques; knitting, quilting, embroidery, and ceramics. Margie Davidson recorded her year a stitch at a time in her project: Measuring a Year by the Minute. Marcy Horswill’s fibre work, Through the Other Side of the Fence, explores the adaptive relationship between wild roses and a metal fence. The Isolation Project by Bridget Fairbank and Alana Wilson, records two lives spent in the isolation of the Canadian wilderness as fire tower observers.
Measuring a Year by the Minute
Margie Davidson (Edmonton, AB)
As the song in the play Rent states, a year is “five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes”. I mused about how I could represent this large a number visually. I knit prayer shawls as a meditative practice as well as samples for a course that I co-lead with Janet Armstrong at the Naramata Centre. What if I expanded my knitting practice and knit one stitch for each minute? The result is a knitted sculpture measuring 20 inches wide and 150 feet long. I commenced working on this piece on April 23, 2011 and knit on it every day for the following year. The colours of the yarn have been chosen to reflect the changing seasonal colours of the vegetation in my back yard and the river valley green space in Edmonton. Fabric tags attached to the work indicate the number of days and the calendar dates knitted.
Margie Davidson is a quilt artist and surface designer. She loves teaching quilting (and knitting) and enjoys sharing ideas about colour theory and design principles. A quilt maker for over 25 years, Margie’s art quilts have been exhibited in local and national shows across Canada as well as in Ireland, New Zealand and the USA.
The Other Side of the Fence
Marcy Horswill (Cumberland, BC)
The main focus of this MFA project is to explore the adaptive relationship between wild roses and a metal gridded fence found on the edge of a golf course beside a small forest near my former home in Northern Alberta. My theory is that this interactive relationship is a metaphor for the connection between humans and the natural environment. I am principally interested in how the human-built fence conforms, over time, to the natural shapes of the wild rose and is eventually overtaken and deteriorates. Despite the invasive human interaction with the natural environment in the act of fencebuilding, the wild rose grows back from its root system and adapts to its new surroundings. While I feel passionately about the seriousness of the negative impact humans can have upon the environment, I am choosing to look at the other side of the fence... literally. There are many plants that become endangered and eventually extinct due to human contact; however, there are also many plants (such as the wild rose) that are walked on, dug up, ploughed under and littered upon, yet they grow again and again and continue to flourish.
Marcy Horswill received her Master of Fine Arts majoring in Fibre Art through Warnborough College in Ireland in 2011. Her work with fibre began in 1989 as an artisan dying silk scarves. When she relocated to a tiny northern British Columbia community her exploration turned towards quilting. Since then, she has gained nearly twenty years of quilting experience and has participated in many group exhibitions across Canada.
The Isolation Project
In the winter of 2009, Bridget Fairbank and Alana Wilson met at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and since then have shared similar experiences as fire tower observers in Northern Alberta. Their isolation has resulted in the contemplation of self, of society, of what solitude means, of how it functions and of how it affects us all. The Isolation Project exhibits each artist’s manifestation of solitude and in turn invites the viewer to acknowledge their personal story of solitude and isolation.
Bridget Fairbank (Nelson, BC)
My inspiration for The Isolation Project came as I traveled across Canada collecting plates and contemplating time. I regarded the extensive highway lines, thinking of the solitary summer regimented by routine that lay ahead as a fire tower observer. What would happen if the rhythm in which the day occurred was represented by space and line? Time never passes at a uniform pace. Each interval of action is different. When a collection of lines is made, the thickness, uniformity and space between each line all speak to us visually as a concept of speed and pace. By altering each dish, adding lines in over-glaze pigments, my personal tale of daily routine is imposed upon each plate.
Bridget Fairbank’s studied ceramics at the Kootenay School of the Arts at Selkirk College, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and at the Australian National University. She has participated in exhibitions across Canada and currently has a studio in Nelson, BC.
Alana Wilson (Hinton, AB)
My inspiration for this work began with the work of artists such as Margaret Kilgallen and Barry McGee, the availability of materials in a remote situation, and the idea of capturing my scattered thoughts in an esthetically pleasing way. The fire tower season is always a time of deep personal contemplation and questioning. My contribution to The Isolation Project is a look at some of the ideas and pressures I ruminate on as an isolated female in my early thirties. In this post-feminist era where establishing a career for myself is important, I still feel a societal and parental pressure to settle down and have children. I often question my desire to do, or not do so. This has become a more commonplace perspective as more women are remaining independent longer and attempting to find strength and fulfillment within themselves.
Alana Wilson received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design majoring in ceramics in 2010. That year she participated in the NASCAD/New Glasgow Community Artist in Residency and the following that the Sturt Contemporary Centre Artist in Residency in Mittagong, Australia. She is currently in Hinton, AB working as a Fire Tower Observer.
