My First Artist Residency

My current days are filled with the preparations for a very special project that has been in development now for about 10 months.

Last winter and spring I wrote a grant application for an Artist in the Classroom Grant from ArtStarts in Schools whose mission is to provide innovative arts programs for young people.  My project was funded which means that I will be working at my neighbourhood Elementary school for most of this 2017-2018 school year.

My sons attend Forest Grove Elementary and being able to work alongside the wonderful teachers and staff at the school made creating this project that much more meaningful. The project is called Art + Craft: Young Hands Quilting Community. It will explore the capacity of a quilt to be both an art and functional object. For more information about the project and to follow along please subscribe to the dedicated blog: Quilting Community or on Instagram Young Hands Quilting.

Getting here has been a lot of work. Getting to the finish line of this project, May 31st 2018 will mean a lot more work. I have doubted myself and getting even this far many times. The learning curve on such an opportunity is huge. I think the key to getting through it all so far has been a driving passion to share my love of the quilted form and to connect that passion to the young people that are part of my community.

This feels like a great step towards an engaged and deepening art practice. And I will share more about this journey as it unfolds.

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JJ

Universal Declaration for Human Rights Quilt Update

As we find ourselves getting back into our fall routines Tal Fitzpatrick is collecting the last quilt blocks as they arrive in Australia for 4 quilts that will be made for this exciting craftivist project. You can find my first two posts detailing the beginnings of the project here and here.

I sent off my block in the mail in early August and after some nervous days of waiting I was relieved to see that it arrived just fine.

I mentioned the inspiration behind each element to my block in the post linked above. Overall, I hope this piece demonstrates four different textile cultures that coexist today despite the attempt by two to overthrow the other two. There are so many wonderful textile based arts in First Nations culture and they stand proudly beside European based textile works to tell rich and varied stories of people and their handiwork over the centuries.

What a monumental task Tal and her volunteers are going to have to piece and quilt all these blocks together.  Many important issues relating to Human Rights today and in the past are featured. You can visit Tal's Instagram feed to view many of the blocks. I will update you all about the project as it progresses.

You are welcome to follow along through my monthly newsletter or click here for other ways to keep up to date.

JJ

On Looking at Past Work

I was not very precious about my art school work. There are many reasons little of it survives today. Moving between three provinces in the last 17 years, too many different houses and apartments in each of them, lack of storage options, but mostly I had a lack of connection with many of the pieces. I have heard many artists say that they feel as if their artwork is a child to them.  I don't have that sentiment. I have pride about my work, I remember feelings and situations I had while making it, but I do not feel any where near the attachment to it as I do my children.

I don't think that it is because the work is not good, though in some cases that is the reason. Overall, it is just a desire to see it out in the world and functioning as it was intended.  To be viewed and enjoyed by other people. I have made a few pieces that are personal mementos and so those I feel attached to.

As I look back on my student work, I have discarded more and more over the years. Recently I had one piece that I did keep framed and it now hangs in the bedroom I share with my husband. This piece along with two small self portraits called out to me earlier this year. They said that they were an important part of my evolution as an artist. I did think for a moment that there may have been other pieces that would have spoken to me this way had I kept them. There is nothing I can do about that now, and honestly I think my work has evolved so much since I finished art school that leaving those "lost" pieces behind is best anyway.

This piece titled How Many Landscapes? from 2000 is embroidery on paper collage.  The text is a poem I wrote. It was the first use of embroidery in my work. It's a big leap in the evolution of who I was in that moment as a young art student. This work is about the conquering spirit of humanity; questioning our desire to own every land mass, every piece of solid ground.  Looking at this each day reaffirms my current path.  It is like a promise to myself about what I am doing, and why I am here. I'm glad I kept this one.

JJ

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Summer Schedule

As an artist with two school age children I have come to rely on the hours that my boys are in school. This potentially uninterrupted time is easier to schedule and I am able to get into a rhythm each day. Granted this took several months to establish after my youngest went to Kindergarten last fall, and after starting part-time work in March I had very little time to luxuriate in my new found quiet studio time. Regardless, of where I may have been this summer, I had personal deadlines in the back of my mind. That meant stitching happened in several places that are unconventional.

While waiting one and a half hours on a bridge ramp after a serious car crash shut down the roadway.

Or at the public swimming pool during two weeks of daily half hour swim lessons. There has been campfire side stitching, park bench or blanket stitching and while it may not have the solitude or focus of studio work, it allows me to feel a sense of accomplishment in the busy days of summer with young kids. I am grateful to have this time with them and for myself.

JJ

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Behind the Art - Inheritance

Today I want to share the journey of a small series of works, one of which is soon to be installed in an exhibit called Great and North at the Palazzo Loredan in Venice Italy from August 29 to October 29, 2017. The beginnings of this work are more humble than where it has ended up but that is the magic of putting yourself out there and taking chances.  You never know where those risks can get you.

This is the original photo of my maternal great grandmother on her wedding day.  I love this photo for its nostalgia but also because of Alice Rogers' story.  She came to Canada from England after training as a baby nurse. Her desire to come here was based on the chance to rise above the class system of English culture that would keep her "in her place." She was coming to join two of her sisters who had already made the trip. It was a leap into the great unknown. It was a difficult sea crossing, it was the early 1900's. Her sole contact with her family back home was letters.  No Facetime like I have the luxury of now. I believe that she, and all my ancestors that braved moving to a new land, had adventurous hearts. Something compels you to move.  To explore, to go. That is not an easy impulse to follow. It is often frightening and lonely but you go because if you stayed it would not be true to who you are or who you could become. Alice met a lovely English bloke named Stephen Adams and they married and birthed two lovely girls.  One of whom is my grandmother Margaret now in her 90's. I did not have the privilege to meet Alice but I feel that she passed something down to me through her DNA. 

I made a series of works featuring fabric that I designed based on this photo of Alice and two of my other grandparents. 

This is Alice I, that was displayed at the Richmond Art Gallery and swapped in a Mail Art exhibition.

This is Alice II, a smaller version with lace and bead embellishments.

And this is Inheritance: Adventurous Heart, that is now part of the Imago Mundi collection and featured in the art book Oh West Canada!

Using the same imagery several times was an exploration of ways to bring out her character and story and relate it to my own. I feel a connection to her despite never having met her in person. It is a great honour to carry her story and those of other family members forward in this time. I am grateful for the legacy that they have passed on to me. And I think most of us can feel the impact of our ancestors if we listen closely enough.

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JJ

UDHR Quilt Block Focus

Two weeks ago I wrote about joining in on the Universal Declaration for Human Right's Quilt Project.  You can read about it here. Today I will explain the focus of my block and part of the meaning behind it.
Every artist in the project either asked for a certain article of the Declaration or was assigned one.  I asked for Article 27 which reads as follows:
 1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which they are the author.

This article covers a lot of ground in terms of the rights of artists and scientists and their freedom to operate within their culture or outside of their home culture, while also keeping their rights to the benefits of their work. Tal and Stephanie wanted to encourage the artists and crafters involved in this project to bring issues that matter to them to the forefront of their 8 x 11 inch block. We were also encouraged to use languages other then English if we were multilingual.  So the first part of my article is in English and the second section I've embroidered in French.

My mind jumped around quite a lot at the beginning because there are so many directions that a statement like article 27 can take someone. But as I narrowed my focus down, it became clear to me that my focus would be a Canadian issue and relate specifically to the relationship between First Nations and Canadian Settler cultures.

I have done enough research in the last few weeks to write a long essay on this topic. So in order to keep this to a comfortable blog post length I'll keep the explanation brief.

Sensitivity and respect are paramount to me when relaying any experience of a culture that is not in my ancestry, so how to represent cultures without appropriating imagery was a concern. I continued to narrow the focus and decided that for a textile based project I should focus on textiles. In that focus I wanted to depict how First Nations art was colonised by the two dominant settler cultures in Canada, namely the British and French empires. Since I have lived in Quebec and British Columbia I chose two First Nation groups from each region to feature. Coast Salish (specifically Squamish) blanket weaving, and Iroquois (specifically Mohawk) beading. From France I decided to use Toile style fabric and from England embroidery of an English rose.   

As the piece develops further I will share more images and will write more about the meaning of the piece.

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JJ

Universal Declaration for Human Rights Quilts

Through the magic that is the internet artists from all over the world can connect and make art collaboratively. Instagram lead me to learn about a new craftivist project created and coordinated by Tal Fitzpatrick (@talfitzpatrick) and Stephanie Dunlap (@illuminatembroidery).  Originally the artist call was for 30 artists and it expanded due to demand to include enough artists to make 4 quilts of 30 8 and a half by 11 inch panels each.
Each panel is an interpretation of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights (UDHR). This document was drafted by representatives from different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world at the United Nations Assembly in Paris in 1948. This was the first document of it's kind setting out fundamental human rights for all.  It has been translated into over 500 languages. You can read the document here.
Part of the initiative of this project is to promote the understanding of these rights and also to raise awareness about the UDHR as well as raise funds for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). This Agency was created after WWII to help displaced Europeans find homes.  Despite only having a four year mandate they are still active today and are more needed than ever. 21.3 million refugees, over half under the age of 18, are given aid through the UNHCR. Refugees are often the first people whose human rights are compromised. Any profits from this project will be donated to the United Nations Refugee Agency, and their is much potential for the reach of this project to go farther than each individual artist could take it. It is an honour to be a part of it.
As the project moves forward I will post about it here and through my social media channels.
Next week I will give details about the UDHR article that I am interpreting and share in-progress photos.

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For more information about this project please visit the official project page at: http://talfitzpatrick.com/udhr-craftivism-project

JJ