Valentina Drag Ball

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Mackenzie Frère

Hello everyone!

As you may be aware the Valentina Drag Ball at The Alberta College of Art & Design is only a week away! This event is a fundraiser for the Jasmine Valentina Herron Scholarship. All proceeds from the Valentina Drag Ball will go towards a scholarship to benefit ACAD students in honour of Jasmine Valentina Herron. The event will be held Friday February 17 at 7:00 pm in the ACAD Main Mall and the Candahar Bar in the Illingworth Kerr Gallery.

The evening will feature performances by Sleepy Panther, Cluster Fox and the DJ stylings of J Waddell. Tickets to the event are only $5 if you come in drag, and $10 if not in drag.

Can’t make it but still want to contribute to the scholarship fund?

Please consider making a donation by cheque today. Cheques should be made payable to The Alberta College of Art & Design. Indicate in the memo line that your donation is for the Jasmine Valentina Herron Scholarship.

Cheques should be mailed to:

Office of Advancement
Alberta College of Art & Design
1407 – 14 Avenue NW
Calgary, AB T2N 4R3

In order to receive a charitable tax receipt, ensure your cheque includes your name address and phone number.

Thank you for your support and see you at the Ball!

Featured | Jolie Bird

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Mackenzie Frère

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Jolie Bird | Tea for One, 2010

Artist Jolie Bird has a new website.

Jolie Bird | Epic Tapestry, 1999

My art practice is grounded in Textiles, a time-honoured medium that requires dexterity, intellect and intuition. Textiles are both visual and tactile in nature; process and materials become intertwined with concept. I am interested in the dichotomies that exist within textiles: simple techniques translate to complex patterns, ancient technology is used to represent contemporary imagery and a required dedication to craftsmanship in a time when machines and efficiency are the norm. My studio practice continues to explore these specific contrasts and the tensions, both visual and conceptual, that arise through a range of techniques and process.

Video at your leisure…

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Mackenzie Frère

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Colour Me Lyrical by Sunshine Frère

enmeshed…

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Mackenzie Frère

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Assistant mends loose thread on a warping drum in weaver Dorothy Liebes’ studio, San Francisco, 1947

Kansuke Yamamoto

Richard Colley

Blanket, plant-dyed felt, work in progress by Mackenzie Frère

Andreas Feininger, Elevated Trestle, Division Street 1941

Work by Valerie Buess

See more on enmesh.tumblr.com.

A Stake in the Ground: Contemporary Native Art Manifestation

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Mackenzie Frère

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Rebecca Belmore

A Stake in the Ground: Contemporary Native Art Manifestation is an impressive and exciting exhibition of contemporary Aboriginal artists curated by Nadia Myre for Art Mur in Montreal. The exhibition features work by: Sonny Assu, Jason Baerg, Carl Beam, Rebecca Belmore, Kevin Lee Burton, Hannah Claus, Bonnie Devine, Raymond Dupuis, Edgar Heap of Birds, Vanessa Dion Fletcher, Nicholas Galanin, Greg Hill, Robert Houle, Maria Hupfield, Rita Letendre, Glenna Matoush, Alan Michelson, Nadia Myre, Marianne Nicolson, Michael Patten, Arthur Renwick, Sonia Robertson, Greg Staats, Tania Willard and Will Wilson.

Nicholas Galanin

Because of my language wound, I have always preferred wordless gestures to speech. I carry with me the feeling that I need to actively listen; to read between the lines; that people don’t say what they mean, that I won’t say what I mean. I have to be very careful about what I say. Language is power, and words shape thoughts that manifest in the world. Many of the works I have chosen for A Stake in the Ground / Baliser le territoire are concerned with the power of language and land. As an Indigenous person I am deeply aware that the two are intertwined: to talk about language in a colonial context is also to talk about stolen lands. One cannot separate the two, and Aboriginal people are never far from the politics of both.

Sonia Robertson

Language lives in the naming of places, and the memory of those places lives in language – combined, they are the building blocks of culture.2 What happens to a people when they are severed from their language? Severed from their land? How does one speak to the erasure of our historical and collective memories? Or adequately express culture when we have forgotten (or never knew) the words with which to read the landscape? How do we counter what David Garneau calls the “assimilationist project”and move beyond our collective wounds of amnesia, trauma, and psychic loss?

Nadia Myre

Each of the artists in the exhibition employs a different strategy to stake their ground and push back against assimilation and erasure. READ MORE of the text by Nadia Myre…

Bonnie Devine

A Stake in the Ground: Contemporary Native Art Manifestation continues until February 25, 2012.

Nicholas Galanin

Weaving by Rilla Marshall

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Mackenzie Frère

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I met Rilla Marshall in 2003, when I was pursuing a Master’s degree at NSCAD University. At the time she was a student too, studying weaving and studio arts and I remember being impressed with her dedication to the craft of weaving.

Today Rilla weaves “wearable and artistic textiles” in her studio in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. You can see more of her wearable work in her Etsy store. She is also the author of Marshall Arts, a blog about her studio and life.

A recent post features Marshall’s inlay-woven map of Charlottetown’s waterfront seen above in progress on her loom. Recently revisiting this work, the artist has embroidered lines indicating areas vulnerable to flooding and arrows indicating “the motion of the sea onto the land.”

The embroidered emphasis of a small city’s vulnerability on the edge of the water give this woven map a compelling emotional depth.

While both weaving and embroidery offer the artist a degree of control over pattern and image, her subject is total loss of control to unpredictable, natural forces.

Rilla Marshall is currently planning to travel to Sweden to study the intersection of Scandinavian textile traditions and contemporary culture. See more of her work on Marshall Arts…