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Salle de presse
Stitching Together a Nation An artist's use of a commonality becomes an uncommon testament to culture and cooperation Artist Esther Bryan has lived in the tiny town of Williamstown, Ontario, for close to 30 years. It was there that she initiated "Invitation, the Quilt of Belonging" in 1999, after a life-changing visit with her Slovak-refugee father to his homeland. She wanted to create "a truly inclusive, collaborative work of art" that represented the many founding nations of Canada and the scores of immigrants who have contributed to the fabric of our country. Early in the process, research showed that every nation in the world is represented within Canada's borders, in addition to over 645 First Nations, Métis and Inuit groups. The sheer number of participants suggested to Esther a "patchwork" of textiles and the universality of needlework. The finished quilt measures 120 feet long by 10 feet high, and comprises 263 blocks. Needlework styles of every conceivable type and description adorn the majority of the blocks rendered in materials as diverse as the nations themselves. "It is a powerful, inspiring visual image of what this world can be and should be, of how we should live," says Esther. The end result is a breath-taking assembly of exquisite, colourful fibre art that is the collaborative effort by hundreds of volunteers from across Canada. True to the desire to reflect traditional methods and styles of each nation, blocks feature myriad techniques and materials: porcupine quillwork and tufted moose-hair, pieced Inuit sealskin, smoke-tanned hides, carved bone and exquisite beadwork represent many Native peoples. Scottish tartans, mirrored fabric, elaborate gold-work, hand-painted three-dimensional silk, woven Kente cloth, and tapa made from Mulberry bark…even butterfly wings, abound. Each block's central design area is a 9-inch square worked on point; each a glorious example of long-honoured stitching techniques. England's gilt-edged teapot overflows with a wonderful bouquet of "needle-painted" flowers native to Britain, beautifully stitched by Sally Blacker. Lyn Prichard's wildly scattered flowers of her native Australia leap to life from a black background. Traditional techniques are honoured in the bright, densely stitched colours of blocks for Hungary (by Monica Nemeth) and Palestine (by Violet Seikaly Srigley). Pulled thread techniques embellish the Belfast linen of the Northern Ireland block (by Cynthia Jackson), and Germany's tone-on-tone Schwalm embroidery (executed by Elfriede Petric) provides subtle texture and speaks of its history. While the U.S. contribution uses a traditional quilted log cabin block pattern surrounded by red, white and blue sampler cross-stitching, France features hand-worked Richelieu lace framing a petit-point village scene rendered in an incredible 1,600 ultra-fine stitches per square inch. Some blocks provide insight into the blockmaker's hidden talents: Tehzib Morad, a native of Pakistan and an artist who paints miniatures, created her block using Shishadar (mirrored fabric) and plenty of gold purl despite having no background in textiles. She learned traditional gold-work techniques as she progressed. Heljä Thomson, whose voice bears traces of a soft Finnish accent, came to the wrong place to pay her municipal taxes when she first retired to the Williamstown area a few years ago. She became an office volunteer for the project and applied her passion for stitching to the Finland block. Other volunteers include Greta Le Courney (Netherlands block), and her needlework protégée Reina Cross, who weekly transformed sketched designs into delicate embroidery. Reina recreated, freehand, the jacquot parrot found on the Saint Lucia block from a photo found on the Internet. The project's queen of appliqué work, Kathleen Alguire, pieced together material with invisible stitches. She's been doing needlework "all her life" and she clearly remembers winning an agricultural-fair prize for making a perfect buttonhole as a very young schoolgirl…over 80 years ago! The Invitation quilt project is compelling, whether one is interested in fabric art, needlework, quilting, diversity or unity. The project has put out a fast-selling book about the blocks and their makers' stories, which is designed to serve as a viewing guide as well. The Quilt of Belonging is on exhibit at The Rooms, Newfoundland's provincial museum division in St. John's, between September and December 2005. To check out when Invitation, the Quilt of Belonging will be near you, visit their Web site at: www.invitationproject.ca, where you can also order the book and find photos and detailed descriptions of each block under Gallery.
Meredith Royds is the Communications Consultant for the Invitation Project.
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