Nadia Myre

This post is about Nadia Myre's exhibition Balancing Acts, now on at the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto until mid-September.  Nadia Myre is of mixed Algonquin and French Canadian heritage.  In 2014 she won the Sobey award, Canada's $50,000 prize for artists under 40 years old.

Sharing Platform 2018  ceramic, various oxides, stainless stell thread  Nadia Myre

From a distance, the artwork in the above photo looks like an antique sweetgrass basket, but on closer examination the materials are like beads.  Maybe it was made by an indigionous woman from long ago, presented for us to admire in this respectful museum setting.  But the artist, Nadia Myre, has fooled us.  Although she is indigionous, the 'basket' is brand new, made in 2018, from ceramic copies of clay shards that the artist found on the banks of the Thames river in London, England.

When Europeans arrived in the New World in the 1600s, tobacco use became popular and clay tobacco pipes pre-stuffed with tobacco werer manufactured in London and Glasgow.    The pipe had a bowl and an elongated stem that was broken off in segments as the tobacco was smoked.  It is these shards and segments that were collected by the artist and her son.

The exhbition includes large-scale digital photographs such as the one above, entitled Code Switching: Pipe Beads (2017). 

Tobacco Barrel 2018  ceramic, oxides, stainless steel thread, Nadia Myre

Nadia Myre's deep respect or and committment to the act of making things by hand is evident as she explores the politics of identity and belonging through poetic, feminist backdrops of craft, care and resilience.  (wall text, textile museum of Canada)

In this body of work, she makes new objects and images that demonstrate how institutionalized archaelogical narratives can be easily destablized.   She also shows how museums simultaneously preserve and erase cultural context.

Besides the work with pipe beads, there are several large scale digital photos in the exhibition.  Above is Gathering Sky 2016, an image of a net superimposed over an atmospheric blue and white sky.  But sky is impossible to contain.   Click here for a pdf that will explain further about Nadia Myre's work.

Scarscapes 2  Time  seed beads and thread  Nadia Myre

Nadia Myre uses photographs, beadwork and textiles to represent human presence.

Between 2005 and 2013 Myre invited people to cut or tear and then mend their scars, both real and symbolic, on stretched canvas fabric and, as well, to write about these scars.  Over the 8 years, 1400 canvases and accompanying texts were created for this Scar Project.    As a follow up to that project, Myre made loom woven beadworks that isolated the most prevalent motifs: sorrow, love, healing and survival.  Scarscapes (2009) and Scarscapes 2 (2015) are in the current exhibition.

Scarscapes 2 2015  Mind  Loss  Time  Nadia Myre

human interaction
environmental change
cultural production

Meditation  (respite 01) 2017 digital print (above)  is a large scale photograph, the first thing the visitor sees upon entering the exhibition.  The size of the photo and the repetitive handwork depicted in it prepares the viewer for a contemplative experience in the rest of the exhibition.

I also want to mention a project not included in this exhibition, but that is an important work for Canada.  Between 1999 and 2002, Nadia Myre organized the Indian Act project, in which she enlisted over 230 friends, colleagues and strangers to help her bead over every word of the Indian Act.   Each English word was covered up with white beads, all negative spaces with red beads.  Very labour intensive, beautiful, and political, the beaded works call attention to that colonial legislation and  provide a step forward for social change.

Nadia Myre asks enduring questions around colonial legacies and I felt lucky to be able to view her new work.

the idea of thread

 I attended the International Art Fair in Toronto on its last day, October 26.  This post shares a few of the artworks I saw there that used thread or the idea of thread.

Above, Toni Hamel's drawing Flight of Fancy 2015.  (16 x 20 inches)

 The materials: graphite, watercolour on paper with thread.

 Art Toronto brings together galleries from around the world.

These container sculptures (above) and the tank in the image below were made by Jannick Deslauriers from organza, thread and beads.

 The gallery that showed this delicate work:  Art Mur from Montreal.

 Art Mur also brought new work by Nadia Myre to its booth at the convention centre.

Nadia Myre won the 2014 Sobey Art Award.  Her work is about healing and retaking control of the trauma caused by history.  These black and white digital prints show the threads on the backs of panels she made in 2000-2003.

The titles of these large prints (43 x 33 inches each) are from left to right Orison #3, Orison # 4 and Orison #7  all 2014.

The Orison panels are the backs of three of the 56 pages Myre and more than 200 collaborators worked on between 2000 and 2003.  Every letter in chapters 1-5 of the 1876 Indian Act of Canada was pierced by a needle and replaced with a bead.

Those black and white Orison prints show the 'hidden evidence of this act of subversion against a genocidal legacy of assimilation and colonialism, and also they are a poetic testament to the strength of connective threads that ultimately bind that resistance together."  Bryne McLaughlin, managing editor Canadian Art Magazine.

 One of the most luxurious uses of thread as an artist's medium is Ed Pien's Play 2012.

 The materials noted on the wall label state simply: 'rope',

Colour, texture, emotion and messiness are beautifully contained in this sculpture. Three of Pien's large ink drawings were mounted on the wall.  (glimpsed above)

 There is no thread in what appears to be an old fashioned one patch quilt by Mitch Mitchell,.

 It's digitally printed paper, folded and patched together with adhesive.  dc3 art projects gallery.

 My final selection of the many artworks that used thread or it's conceptual metaphor is this wall construction made from canvas that had been drawn on with ink, then cut up and sewn back together.

The artist is Jessica Bell from Ottawa.  The title of the piece is Folly, made in 2015.  It was part of the RBC Canadian Painting Competition.

Art Toronto was at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre October 23 - 26 2015.  It is an annual event, so plan to attend next year if you are in the area.

Remembering the opening of Hard Twist 10: Memory

Icarus,  found lottery tickets, dental floss, by Rebecca Siemering

Memory one:

The traffic in the city was thick and intense, it took an hour to drive from the Riverdale area in East Toronto where we had family over to the Gladstone Hotel on Queen West.  It was also the opening night of the Toronto Film Festival - maybe that's why.

Rebecca Siemering collects scratch lottery tickets on her daily walk

Rebecca considers the hope that is held in those tickets, discarded with disappointment

Memory two: the lovely old manual elevator.  The friendly operator greets us as if we are old friends

Red Moons, vintage wool blanket, mended Judith e Martin

Memory three:
The crowd on the 4th floor where daughter and I search for my piece and don't find it. We go down to the 3rd floor where there are even more people because that is where the bar is.  We find my piece in a side hall.

Memory four:
My work doesn't look as proud as it was at the home studio.  It is across from Andrew McPhail's sequined bed sheet and that pleases me because our two pieces converse well with each other.

 Memory five:  Looking for art work I can respond to but so many people stand in the way, talking.

Jamie: Trousers on wood stretcher by Jamie Ashforth

Deconstructing these utilitarian objects exposes subtleties like stains, fading, smudges and tears, unintended marks that organically build composition and depth and embody memory.  Jamie Ashforth

Memory six:
Introducing myself to Jamie Ashforth and telling her that I appreciate her work.  The worn clothing and found textile objects that she has stretched around wooden frames make a simple and powerful statement.   Jamie introduced me to her aunt, grey haired like I am, who spoke about textile art "back in the day" when we were young too.

Susan: Poncho and wooden stretcher by Jamie Ashworth

Memory seven:
Finding one of the curators, Chris Mitchell, and speaking with her about the show.  Ms Mitchell told me that she felt that this 10th edition of the Hard Twist exhibitions was the strongest so far.  She said that there is a real need for venues for conceptual textile art and that the galleries don't give this genre enough space.  She thinks that this hotel space works well.

Chapter 2 page 1, silkscreen and hand painted pieces of mylar and discarded embroidery punch cards by Anu Raina

"This is a tribute to my beautiful mother to whom I had to bid good bye at the tender age of ten:  Anu Raina

Memory eight:  needing to go down a level to cool off.  It was really hot and crowded.

Memories nine and ten:
Looking at the art and photographing just a few.
Realizing that I need to go back.  I need more reflective time and space.  I need to not be so concerned with the networking aspect of being at an opening.

Hard Twist

Two pieces (not mine) from Hard Twist 8 - this is personal  at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto until April 27. Click on the artist's names to go to their professional web sites. xx

Shirtz by Susan Avishai  2013   made from pre-worn (but washed) men's dress shirts, about 7' square

Manufactured clothing is made to be consumed, discarded, put into good will, and eventually baled for rags.

"I wanted to insert myself into this cycle to see if something personal, beautiful, and original could be made from the used clothing headed for this ignoble fate."  Susan Avishai

Drawing / Weaving  by Colleen McCarten  2013   Silk yarn, parchment paper, marker  36" x 108"

"Does changing the material or technique alter the value of a piece?    Colleen McCarten
Above image is hand woven, the one below is hand drawn.  

Pondering economics while marveling  at expert use of materials, time, and technique.

Anu Tuominen

 "Anu Tuominen is one of the most acclaimed conceptual artists in Finland".

pot holders installed

She collects and organizes flea market finds.  She is concerned with colour, shape and the handmade.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              .

deep blue - hand stitch

 She elevates the handmade.

light green - crochet

 Crochet is a favourite medium.  She has an MFA from the Academy of Fine Art in Helsinki.

fingerprints - crochet

".When an object is handmade, you can see the artist's unique touch in it.  Hand, as well as time and labour, have left their mark on the object.  A handmade object is full of fingerprints."  Anu Tuominen

fleur de sel - crochet

 She uses the familiar things of every day.  Simple things.  We viewers have dream like associations.  

carrots - crochet

I discovered Anu Tuominen's art in three catalogues in the bookshop of the Kiasma art gallery here in Helsinki.   However, all images in this post are from blogs and the artist's own website. Visit here, here,  and  here for starters.

red yellow blue black white - crochet

"Hand craft is a unique media.  It binds the life of the creator with the life of the creation and the creator's life becomes the creation" 

And yes, Ned and I are in Finland.