Joyce Wieland: I Love Canada ~ J'Aime Le Canada

 Joyce Wieland :  I Love Canada ~ J'Aime Le Canada

Joyce Wieland  (1930-1998) is considered to be one of Canada's most prominent and prolific artists. 

The youngest of three children, she was born in Toronto, Canada to English emigrants who died when Joyce was quite young.  Brought up by her siblings, she attended high school at Central Tech in Toronto and was mentored by artist Doris McCarthy, who taught there.  She began her work career in film animation and met artist Michael Snow, marrying him when she was 26.  In 1960, (age 30) and then again in 1962, she had solo shows in two separate Toronto commercial galleries.  1962 is also the year that she and Michael moved to New York and lived there for nine years.  While in the USA, she became more aware of politics and of her deep love for  her home country, Canada.  When Pierre Elliot Trudeau became prime minister in 1968, she celebrated that by giving him a bed sized quilt, inspired by his mantra, Reason Over Passion.  Read more information about this two part piece that mixes the personal and the political at this link.   Wieland and Snow moved back to Canada in 1971 in time for her to mount her solo exhibition, "True Patriot Love" at the National Gallery of Canada. The exhibition included quilts and paintings, most about the fragile arctic and expressing a deep love for Canada.  Joyce's older sister Joan Stewart along with friends and volunteers joined with Joyce to sew the quilts she designed for this ground-breaking exhibition.  

I Love Canada ~ J'Aime Le Canada    cloth, thread, batting, metal.  Joan Stewart did the quilting and the embroidery.        1970   collection of Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Canada. 

"Wieland believed that Canada had to extricate itself from US encroachment.  Subverting the myth of a peaceful, tolerant, caring, and just Canada, the small embroidered letters in the middle read:  "Death to U.S. Technological Imperialism" in both official languages.   Wieland's progressive vision of Canadian society saw anglophones and francophones reconciled.  she declared in a 1971 New York Times article "I'm a Canadian.  I believe in Canada.  We should work for Canadian unity - English and French - as Canadians, not as anti-Americans.  We should be more positive about ourselves."

Joyce Wieland is being honoured by a full career retrospective in 2025.  It showed in Montreal in the first half of the year and in Toronto at the art gallery of Ontario in the second half.  There is a catalogue available entitled Heart On.  

Number 4 of Canadian Artists Who Work With Textiles