Canadian Pioneer in Toronto

warm, heavy, useful, brave   
wool, pieced, slashed, bundled, felted, layered, blanket stitched, quilted 

 I managed to see my wool quilt, Canadian Pioneer, on the last day of Craft Ontario '13.  It felt fantastic to see it from the street, beckoning city folk in to the white space with its rough red heart.

It was installed near Christopher Reid Flock's paperclay sculpture, similar in more ways than colour.  He used slab construction to create a new piece, which he then dropped.  The resulting pieces re-assembled made something newer.  More interesting.  

From the several textile pieces in this exhibition of fine craft my favourite was Marianne Burlew's Limb 1, an organic sculpture that looks as if it began as a sleeve, but changed along the way into a three dimensional wall mounted oval.  Larger, stranger.  circuit wire crochet. 

She survived the slashing.  

In fact the mending stitches made her stronger, more self-aware.

All those bundles tied and stitched? 
They survived the drowning.

In fact, felting made her more interesting.
Tougher.
Optimistic.

Canadian woman pioneer