LITTORALIA

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LITTORALIA

LITTORALIA

MAGGIE J. WHITTEN HENRY

Copyright © 2021 Maggie J. Whitten Henry All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission from the copyright holder, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

All content by Maggie J. Whitten Henry unless otherwise credited.

Cover photography by Jane Meredith Whitten Design by Maggie J. Whitten Henry First online edition August 2021 www.mjwh.ca

LITTORALIA MAGGIE J. WHITTEN HENRY

lit•tor•a•lia items situated on, connected with, or relating to the physical or metaphorical shore.

Littoralia is an ongoing series of artworks which are situated on, connected with, or relating to the physical or metaphorical shore.

Coming from the English littoral (relating to or situated on the shore) which in turn comes from the Latin lītorālis (of the shore), littoralia may manifest in forms such as (but not limited to) landwash, marginalia, reflections, or ruminations.

Some works in this collection are directly inspired by specific texts, while others emerge from the creative process and are then further illuminated through conversation with relevant literature. All have been made as a result of daily research-creation practice over a number of months, and all are richly layered in multidimensional meaning.

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Traces II In his 2007 taxonomy of lines, Tim Ingold (p. 44) identifies a ‘trace’ as “any enduring mark left in or on a solid surface by continuous movement.” Consideration of Ingold’s suggestion that most traces are either additive (forming an extra layer upon the surface) or reductive (formed by removal of material from the surface) prompted curiosity about whether and how traces could be both additive and reductive, wherein, perhaps, the absence of an ‘additive’ trace imparts reductivity, or, as in the case of my quilt stitches (see Whitten Henry, 2021), a body of work may position ‘additive’ as ‘reductive’ — or as representative of ‘reductive’ — thus conveying the relation of all things and disrupting linear notions of time and space.

Traces II is an exploration of this, incorporating an overlay of digital traces — themselves representative of physical stitches in a larger project — denoting cod density in the Newfoundland region in 1850 (McCrea Strub & Pauly, 2011) superimposed on a digital weaving of cod fish and capelin (the former nutritionally reliant on the latter), suggesting erasure while simultaneously inviting reflection on relatial entanglement; in reality and in nature, everything is inter- and intra-related.

These stitches or traces are at once representative of both loss and abundance: a reminder of what once was and, at the same time, a foreshadowing of catastrophic collapse — and all that both sides of this duality contain and represent (see, e.g., Kurlansky, 1998; Thornhill Verma, 2019). Here, we are reminded that there is no ‘past’ (Pugh & Chandler, 2021; Whitten Henry, 2021). These traces, afterlives, and entangled relations are omnipresent and, hauntingly, very much part of the ongoing here and now.

WORKS CITED

Ingold, T. (2007). Lines: A brief history. Routledge.

Kurlansky, M. (1998). Cod: A biography of the fish that changed the world. Penguin Books.

McCrea Strub, A., & Pauly, D. (2011). Atlantic cod: Past and present [Blog post]. Sea Around Us: Fisheries, ecosystems & biodiversity. http://www.seaaroundus.org/atlantic-cod-past-and-present/ Pugh, J., & Chandler, D. (2021). Anthropocene islands: Entangled worlds. University of Westminster Press. https://doi.org/10.16997/book52 Thornhill Verma, J. (2019). Cod collapse: The rise and fall of Newfoundland’s saltwater cowboys. Nimbus Publishing.

Whitten Henry, M. J. (2021). Thesis: Project overview. Retrieved July 18, 2021, from http://mjwh.ca/thesis/

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Traces II, 2021

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(Working title), 2021

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(Working title) ‘Rob Peter to Pay Paul’ is one of many traditional quilt patterns used on Fogo Island, often making use of carefully selected recycled, vintage, and new materials (Hall, 2017). In her study of quilting practice and iconography on Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula, Lisa Wilson (2011) discusses how shifts in function can impact a quilt’s overall meaning — not just for the creator, but for all who engage with it. Wilson (2011, p. 33) observed that the “album pattern” quilts being produced on the Great Northern Peninsula had shed (or perhaps rejected) the utilitarian origins of the quilt and were instead being created as decorative objects. By not using these quilts, Wilson (2011, p. 83) suggests, “they are elevated to a special status” and become symbolic objects, “meant to live on for subsequent generations.”

While the Great Northern Peninsula and Fogo Island have different quilting traditions (see, e.g., Hall, 2017; Wilson, 2011), the emergence of decorative, ‘non-functional’ quilting has been observed worldwide over the last few decades (Bial, 1996; University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2013). (Working title) honours and reiterates traditional local Fogo Island quilting techniques, incorporating carefully selected Fogo-made (photographic) material from an existing personal collection to construct a well-loved pattern and, in doing so, taking Wilson’s “special status” concept to a whole other level. This digital ‘quilt’ is undeniably decorative in its current form and can therefore easily be construed as a purely symbolic object — an everlasting digital vessel of meaning. If this artwork were to be printed onto a large piece of fabric, however, its latent functionality is brought to the surface (again with the puns) and the work takes on another layer of meaning entirely.

This inherent potential to be more than reiterates the powerful plurality not just of coveted decorative quilts, but of textile practice — and, indeed, all art forms — more broadly. To borrow Lisa Wilson’s (2011, p. 31) words, “Tradition can take on the form of a survival from the past, but it can also acquire new forms and evolve into the future.”

WORKS CITED

Biall, R. (1996). With needle and thread: A book about quilts. Houghton Mifflin. https://archive.org/details/withneedlethread0000bial/ Hall, P. (2017). Robbing Peter to pay Paul: Reclaiming heritage quilt patterns. In P. Hall (Ed.), Towards an encyclopedia of local knowledge: Excerpts from chapters I and II. Breakwater. https://encyclopediaoflocalknowledge.com/chapter2/robbing-peter-to-pay-paul-reclaiming-heritage-quilt-patterns/ University of Nebraska-Lincoln. (2013). Abstract design in American quilts. International Quilt Museum. Retrieved July 18, 2021, from https://worldquilts.quiltstudy.org/americanstory/creativity/abstractdesign Wilson, L. A. (2011). Iconography of the Newfoundland quilt: Piecing together meaning on the Great Northern Peninsula [Master’s thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland]. https://research.library.mun.ca/6501/

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Recursion Recursion is a series of works exploring the entangled relationship of ‘sense of place’, islandness, and identity.

Characterized by recurrence, reiteration, and replication, these works play with traditional quilting techniques in a digital context, staying true to their origins by making use of carefully selected, existing materials. The result is a family of textiles which are both decorative and functional — and layered in multidimensional meaning.

Common elements are reiterated across all three works, most notably the digitized stitch overlay pattern which represents the density of cod surrounding the island of Newfoundland (Ktaqmkuk) in 1850 (McCrea Strub & Pauly, 2011). In this entangled world, everything is connected — and in Recursion, fish is at the heart of it all.

SOURCES & WORKS CITED

McCrea Strub, A., & Pauly, D. (2011). Atlantic cod: Past and present [Blog post]. Sea Around Us: Fisheries, ecosystems & biodiversity. http://www.seaaroundus.org/atlantic-cod-past-and-present/

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RECURSION, 2021 L-R: Cod (Rob Peter to pay Paul), Entwined (Double wedding ring), Adaptation (Irish Chain + Star variation) Silk scarves; digitally ‘quilted’ fabric and photographs. 16 in x 16 in (40.64 cm x 40.64 cm.

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WINDROWS, 2021 Clockwise from top-left: Stage, Capelin, Splitting tables, Fence.

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Windrows Windrows is a series of works in conversation with the winds of outport Newfoundland.

‘Windrow’ has agricultural origins: peat, grass, corn, and hay are laid in windrow to dry by exposure to wind; branches and leaves are gathered for collection or disposal. By analogy, ‘windrow’ can also be applied to a row or series of rows of any other materials which have been gathered for drying or collection, or which have been clustered, displaced, carried, or otherwise shaped by the wind itself.

The island of Newfoundland (Ktaqmkuk) is a place characterized by its powerful winds, both in academic scholarship (e.g., “having among the strongest potential for wind energy development of any jurisdiction in North America,” Mercera et al., 2017, p. 673) and in literature (e.g., “the might of the wild wind,” “the blasting force of the wind,” Tomova, 2020, p. 21, p. 31). Here, the wind is a main character, demanding cooperation, patience, resistance, and, at times, even divination.

At the core of this series are scanned negatives made by the artist’s mother in Trout River and Brent’s Cove in 1973. Rows of fish, nets, splitting tables, and fencing are imprinted with figures of fish or skiffs, and overlaid with an iterative wind map of Newfoundland — reiterated from the original, and reiterated across the series. While the wind is dependably ever-present, the ways that it playfully weaves through each environment differs.

SOURCES & WORKS CITED

Khan, M. J., & Iqbal, M. T. (2004). Wind energy resource map of Newfoundland. Renewable Energy, 29, 1211–1221. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2003.12.015 Mercera, N., Sabau, G., & Klinkea, A. (2017). “Wind energy is not an issue for government”: Barriers to wind energy development in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Energy Policy, 108, 673–683. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.06.022 Oxford English Dictionary. (2021). Windrow, n. OED Online. Retrieved August 23, 2021, from http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/229276 Tomova, V. (2020). The wall and the wind. Running the Goat, Books & Broadsides.

ABOUT

Maggie J. Whitten Henry (she/her) is an emerging artist and interdisciplinary scholar with a focus on sense of place and identity in island and rural contexts. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology (2011) from the Australian National University and is currently undertaking a Master of Arts in Island Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island, located in Epekwitk, Mi’kma’ki: the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq.

Lingering at the complex intersection of art practice, theoretical concepts, and academic research methods, Maggie’s work is informed by a deep appreciation of the unique complexities of rural, coastal, and island places, and the potential of engaging relational approaches to inspire alternative ways of thinking and communicating. Emerging from a daily research-creative practice over several months, her most recent bodies of work engage ‘the island’ (whether physical, metaphorical, or a liminal in-between) as a figure of generative, ongoing becoming: a site of recursive islandness and infinite possibility. Maggie works in a variety of media, has shared her work in talks in Canada and internationally, and has several peer-reviewed academic publications.

LEARN MORE ABOUT MAGGIE AND HER WORK AT MJWH.CA

lit•tor•a•lia items situated on, connected with, or relating to the physical or metaphorical shore.

MAGGIE J. WHITTEN HENRY

mjwh.ca