November 20 – 23, 2019

The ninth annual A Handmade Assembly, hosted by the Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre with support from the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University, features workshops, talks, and projects by Lisa Binkley, Tara Bursey, Paul Butler, Onya Hogan-Finlay, Marcia Huyer, Logan MacDonald, Alana Morouney, Lucas Morneau, Carley Mullally, Roula Partheniou, Carmen Robertson, Larry Weyand.

Opening Night Roundtable Discussion

Wednesday, November 20, 7:30 PM
Sackville United Church, 110 Main St.

The Assembly activities begins with an Opening Night Roundtable Discussion moderated by Moderated by Emily Falvey with Logan MacDonald, Lucas Morneau, Alana Morouney, Carley Mullaly, and Roula Partheniou.

Participants each share a short presentation on topics related to the handmade in contemporary culture as it relates to their own research or art practices, followed by questions from the moderator and audience.

Workshop: Learn To Crochet with The Queer Mummer
Lucas Morneau

Thursday, 21 November,

12:30 PM – 3:45 PM
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Learn to crochet through some basic stitches and a pattern made by The Queer Mummer. Maybe you’ll walk away with a brand new balaclava!

Special Project: The Collage Party
Paul Butler

Thursday, 21 November, 7:00 PM
Owens Art Gallery

For over twenty years, the staple in Paul Butler’s artistic practice has been The Collage Party—a nomadic, public studio where people come together and make art in a social setting.

Butler has worked with children, older adults, artists living with a mental and/or physical disability, and artists of all levels and disciplines. The Collage Party functions both as Paul Butler’s studio, where he produces collage, as well as a platform for people of all backgrounds and artistic levels to come together and experience the benefits of making art in a group setting.

The Collage Party has been staged throughout North America and Europe in museums, private residences, public schools, universities, hospitals, department stores, and community centres.

Workshop: Banner Making Workshop 
Tara Bursey

Friday, 22 November, 1:00 – 5:00 PM
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Over history, banners have served as vehicles for communicating the messages of social movements, and allowed groups of workers to declare their values and affiliation through use of cloth, symbol and text.

For this workshop, participants will learn how appliqué, iron-on transfer, stenciling, embellishment and painting can be employed in banner making inspired by historic and contemporary banners from social and labour movements. The use of text, image, embellishment and colour will be discussed, stimulating ideas for the creation of banners that make a collective or individual declaration or demand.

Workshop: Unmaking the Archive
Logan MacDonald

Friday, 22 November, 1:00 – 5:00 PM
Owens Art Gallery

In this workshop, participants will explore and respond to archival materials from the Owens Art Gallery and the Mount Allison University Archives. Offering both a critical and imaginary engagement with the practice of archive making, the workshop will focus on how methods of collecting, housing, handling, and displaying (or not displaying) historical objects reinforce certain worldviews and attitudes towards knowledge. It will also offer insights into possible strategies for artists who wish to engage with the limitations and possibilities of archives.

Talk: All or None: Garment Union Banners and the Fabric of Protest
Tara Busey

Saturday, 23 November, 11:30 AM
Owens Art Gallery

The structure and strength of textile has long been seen as a metaphor for community and care. This idea was the basis of a 2017 exhibition All or None at the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre, which explored the iconography and production of a selection of banners from its permanent collection as vehicles of communication, celebration, affiliation, and resistance.

This talk will the share the histories and stories behind a small collection of banners from garment workers’ union locals in Canada, and the labour unions and workers– primarily immigrant women– who decades ago fueled garment manufacturing in Canada and beyond. The banners will serve as the foundation of the talk, which will highlight how they commemorate a little-known history of women’s work, as well as how their production and alteration over time holds meaning. This talk will also survey early examples of banners from the international labour movement, and how the legacy of early 20th century labour banners can be found in the works of contemporary artists, artist-activists and collectives today.

Keynote: Making/Storying—Contemplating the Power of Artmaking Narratives
Carmen Robertson

Saturday, 23 November, 7:30 PM
Owens Art Gallery

For Carmen Robertson the process of making art is inextricably linked with the process of storying. In a discussion centred around Indigenous art and makers, Robertson considers the intimate connections between narrative, process, and what comes of those interactions. As an Indigenous art historian, she draws upon her research interests and independent curatorial practice to contemplate the myriad ways story and art processes shape each other. Drawing from Indigenous ways of knowing, connections between land and kinship, community and locality, forge new conversations that possess the power to bind us.

Talk: The Never Ending Collage Party
Paul Butler

Thursday, 21 November, 9:00 AM
Owens Art Gallery

Paul Butler will talk about 20 years of touring The Collage Party and how it serves as a nomadic, public studio where people come together and make art in a social setting.

Performance: Tell Me Something Good
Alana Morouney

Thursday, 21 November, 1:00 PM
Struts & Faucet

Tell Me Something Good is a participant driven project that invites you to anonymously leave a message and “tell me something good” via a tin can phone made of cast plaster and woven leather cord. These messages are translated into Morse code and woven together in the order they are received to become a long continuous piece of fabric using a small table-top loom.

A reflection on the mechanization of both language and of the body’s movements, Tell Me Something Good seeks to challenge and re-imagine the structures that would remove the voice of the individual in favour of a language of functionality. Your contribution is welcome and deeply appreciated.

Talk: Thought Bubbles: expanded, popped, deflated
Marcia Huyer

Friday, 22 November, 9:00 AM
Owens Art Gallery

The form of imagination is visualized as a bubble above one’s head. One’s breath can inflate a beach ball larger than themselves within minutes. Marcia Huyer will present a talk about the inflatable form’s history with in art, architecture and culture.  A close look at the misinterpreted whimsy, the seduction, utopic optimism, and how the materiality make the inflatable form conducive to collective projects and a tool for activism will be presented.

Workshop: Twist and Braid
Carley Mullalley

Friday, 22 November, 1:00 – 5:00 PM
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

With the simple methods of twisting and braiding, the maker can rely on their own hands to create materials for further use, or celebrate the material itself as a sculptural piece.

This workshop will begin by looking at traditional rope-making methods by twisting with both hand and machine. Scales can range from the size of a knitting yarn to hawser rope. We will then look at Japanese braiding techniques known as kumihimo, where the maker can create either simple or complex three-dimensional braids.

Nearly any material can be twisted or braided – from plastic bags, to yarns, to concrete. Due to the accessibility of material and method, this workshop welcomes makers of all ages, abilities and backgrounds.

Exhibition: Peeling the Sticker Off An Overripe Pear
Larry Weyand

Friday, 22 November, 7:00 PM
Struts & Faucet

In conversations with family members around the dinner table, Larry Weyand notices that little moments of stress, anxiety, panic, abuse, disagreement, anger, addiction, sadness and loss all occurred within the context of a good meal. In order to better understand how these behaviors have been passed down from generation to generation, she diligently records these seemingly little moments, bearing the impact of these memories through the written word and creative writing. Translating these storied foods into two dimensional and sculptural hooked rugs, creating meaning out of yarn. Weyand’s curiosity lies in the space where narrative, humor, psychological resilience, mat making and food intersect.

Bright, colorful, humorous and chunky mats softly and safely start conversations about mental health, dysphoria, trauma and the act of making as a coping mechanism. Weyand pulls each strand of yarn through meters upon meters of burlap, questioning how repetition in cloth can break intergenerational behavioral patterns. Weyand carries her emotional baggage through this craft of resilience, each completed rug becoming an externalized record of compassion and understanding towards previous generations.

Workshop: Sackville, Upside Down
Onya Hogan-Finlay

Saturday, 23 November, 1:00 – 5:00 PM
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Experience inverted perspectives of the familiar in a walk through downtown Sackville during this two-part workshop. Each participant will use carboard to craft a basic handheld camera obscura through which to see places of interest in town. Learn about local lore and peer through the pinhole of your own camera obscura to witness the magic of an analog optical phenomenon. Weather permitting, we will travel on foot to visit heritage trees and sites including the Swan Pond, Mike MacDonald’s Butterfly Garden, and more.

Sackville Upside Down will create an opportunity to consider moments when our own worlds have been turned upside as we re-frame new views of the immediate surroundings and pause to ask: How do we become oriented in space and how do our orientations shape who we become in the world that we share?

Talk: The Hairy Orange
Onya Hogan-Finlay

Thursday, 21 November, 10:20 AM
Owens Art Gallery

Find out how citrus, sand, and an LGBTQIA+ salon sparked the idea for The Hairy Orange, a forthcoming public art project that is at the intersection of optical phenomenon and earth dome architecture. Currently, in the design phase, The Hairy Orange will be a camera obscura that features a Superadobe dome as the centerpiece/hub for seasonal programming in Los Angeles. Through the lenses of land use, history of migrant labor, geotagging and tourism, the project will embody elements of biological, ecological and intergenerational co-mingling. Inspired by contemporary food justice movements and bygone era roadside attractions as iconic sites for agricultural commerce, this project will activate the living vestiges of Southern California’s juicy citrus industry. Feedback and fruitful exchange are welcomed during this artist talk!

Talk: Creative Research: Crafting and the Academic Process
Lisa Binkley

Thursday, 21 November, 4:00 PM
Owens Art Gallery

For the creative mind, writing under the pressures of the academy can be quite daunting and, at times tedious. Incorporating creative practice into the processes of research and writing brings forth a renewed purpose, followed by new ways of thinking and knowing. When Lisa Binkley researched and wrote her PhD thesis, followed by its transition into a book, making became an important aspect of her work. By doing needlework, spinning yarn, weaving, embroidering, and quiltmaking, Lisa in effect crafted what she researched, engaging in historical methods of textile production to gain a better sense of the experiences of women makers during the nineteenth century. In this talk, Lisa will share her experiences and some of the stories of the women she encountered.

Talk: Peeling the Sticker Off An Overripe Pear
Larry Weyand

Friday, 22 November, 10:20 AM
Owens Art Gallery

To heal, Larry Weyand makes. She starts an area rug. She hooks floating representations of objects and foods into the burlap, contouring each one with long strands of Briggs & Little Washed White loops. Each object and food is disconnected.

This is Weyand’s Grammy’s rug. As Weyand hooks her lime green Lay-Z-Boy, as she hooks her little cigarette butts, she is reminded of the lasting memories she has of her grandmother. Suddenly the detached, individual objects form an atmosphere, an atmosphere so strong, she can feel her Grammy’s presence. She holds it tightly. She can almost remember her skinny little arms holding me tenderly as my fingers fluttered through her cigarette-smoked carpet. All these memories run through the strands of my Briggs & Little area rug.

How has this mat triggered such a response? To what extent can art and narrative be used to heal, to understand intergenerational traumas and break the systematic destructive behavioral patterns that have occurred in my family? How does Weyand connect her comfort in rug hooking, family history and love for creative writing? What is the broader historical significance of rug hooking as a basis for my practice? How does making help cope with the past and create new meaning? Let’s find out.

Performance: Queer Mummer Puppet Theatre
Lucas Morneau

Friday, 22 November, 8:00 PM
Struts & Faucet

Inspired by Canadian icon Mr. Dressup, Queer Mummer Puppet Theatre uses camp humour and crocheted objects to deconstruct queer colonial/settler traditions such as the historically misogynistic Punch and Judy puppet shows.

Workshop: Puff
Marcia Huyer

Saturday, 23 November, 1:00 – 5:00 PM
Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts, rm 131

Inflatable forms are often made from materials and processes that are not inherently familiar. Inflatable technologies and materials began through military and space research. Although highly sophisticated they are also completely absurd. There are several methods, materials, and approaches to fabricating inflatable sculptures. With in this workshop, Marcia Huyer will show a variety of materials, fabrication techniques, and approaches to inflation. Each participant will make their own or collaborate with others to fabricate an inflated form.

October 17 – 20, 2018

The eight annual A Handmade Assembly, hosted by the Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre with support from the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University, featured workshops, talks, and projects by Carrie Allison, Hassaan Ashraf, Chris Boyne, Paige Gratland, Robyn Love, Kristie MacDonald & Ella Tetrault, Kristin Nelson, Graeme Patterson, Sarah Quinton, Lisa Schroeder, and Negar Tajgardan.

Opening Night Roundtable Discussion

Wednesday, November 20, 7:30 PM
Sackville United Church, 110 Main St.

The Assembly activities begins with an Opening Night Roundtable Discussion moderated by Moderated by Emily Falvey with Logan MacDonald, Lucas Morneau, Alana Morouney, Carley Mullaly, and Roula Partheniou.

Participants each share a short presentation on topics related to the handmade in contemporary culture as it relates to their own research or art practices, followed by questions from the moderator and audience.

Workshop: Guilty Pleasure Data Gathering
Ella Tetrault & Kristie MacDonald

Thursday, October 18,

1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts: Sculpture Studio (first floor)

Guilty Pleasure Data Gathering will explored the ways looking for images online can inform the process of making. Over the course of three hours, the group explored image-data collection as a pathway to subject matter for art and craft or as a work in and of itself. Through discussion and the production of print-out collages, participants were provided with the space to consider how they collect and relate to images. Using printers, paper, scissors, and glue participants moved the images they locate from online sources to handmade collage. Participants left the workshop with a new collection of source material and a small artwork, as well as new tools and strategies for discussing the role of data-image collection.

Artist Talk: Building a Connection through Making
Carrie Allison

Friday, October 19, 9:30 AM
Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts, room 302,
Mount Allison University

Carrie Allison’s presentation focused on beading as a way to build connections, looking at her latest projects 150, Sîpîy, The Shubenacadie River Beading Project and Beading Treaty. These projects center pedagogy and research, and seek to engage participants in body and mind. Allison discussed her journey to beadwork and how it has become a central practice in her artwork, both personally and socially.

Workshop: Beading Treaty
Carrie Allison

Friday, October 19, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre,
7 Lorne St.

This workshop explores making as pedagogy through a collaborative beading project. Beading Treaty is a community collaborative project beading the individual words of the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1725. This act of making will encourage participants to engage in dialogue about the Treaties of Peace and Friendship. Giving non-Indigenous participants space to contemplate their role in reconciliation and shared responsibility, and Indigenous participants space to share their individual perspectives.

Artist Project: Search Engine Serendipity
Ella Tetrault & Kristie MacDonald

https://www.searchengineserendipity.com/

Search Engine Serendipity is a collaborative artist project by Ella Tetrault and Kristie MacDonald. It explores the process of locating, selecting, and interpreting images online, and the tangential paths we navigate to find them. Taking the form of an internet travelogue, the website is a hyperlinked collage of found and created images, video clips, search engine results and live-streams, juxtaposed through intuitive logic and thematic associations.

Workshop: Pakistani Kite-Making and the Basant Festival
Hassaan Ashraf

Saturday, October 20,

1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre, 7 Lorne St.

This workshop will bring the colourful gift of Pakistani kite-making to the participants and will educate and inform them about the beautiful Basant Festival which is the kite flying festival of Pakistan and it’s the celebration of coming of spring. They will also learn the political reality of the Basant Festival and how the Pakistani government banned the festival over fifteen years ago and the beautifully simple act of kite flying was made illegal. The participants will learn to make different kites of different colors and how to fly these kites.

Artist Talk: Search Engine Serendipity: Browsing for Images as Intimate Labour
Ella Tetrault & Kristie MacDonald

Thursday, October 18, 9:30 AM
Owens Art Gallery, 61 York St.

Search Engine Serendipity: Browsing for Images as Intimate Labour was a collaborative artist talk between Kristie MacDonald and Ella Tetrault, which sought to work through the relationship between digital image collection and making. MacDonald and Tetrault explored common contemporary strategies for locating and interpreting source materials online. They co-presented an illustrated discussion that described methodologies used in their individual practices, and explored the work of other artists and craftspeople who engage in similar practices.

Workshop: Hand/Eye/Ear/Nose/Mouth
Robyn Love

Thursday, October 18, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM & Friday, October 19, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre, 7 Lorne St.

Most of us have attempted to render an object on paper using observational drawing at one point or another.  What would happen if we didn’t use our eyes in that process?  In this drop-in workshop, paper and drawing materials will be provided.  Bring an object to draw or use one that will be on hand.  The only condition is: no peeking.  Using touch, smell, sound or taste, can you express the object on paper?  The ability to see is a wonderful, powerful thing but, in many ways, it also limits how we perceive the world – things become ordinary and easily overlooked.  Let’s change that up and let even the most boring object come alive in a new way.

Artist Talk: it cannot be called travelling
Negar Tajgardan

Friday, October 19, 11:00 AM
Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts, room 302,
Mount Allison University.

Negar Tajgardan spoke about her interests in Memories and Displacement through her recent artworks. Sometimes the memories of places we lived before make it hard to settle down elsewhere. Through her artwork, she is attempting to indicate the ideas of vulnerability and instability as a result of displacement and how they affect the quality of our lives. Her works relate to the idea of displacement through her personal experiences as someone coming from Iran to study in Canada.

Film Screening: BOOTWMN (Canada/US/UK 2015)  10:36 mins
Paige Gratland

Friday, October 19, 7:30 PM
Owens Art Gallery, 61 York St.

Deana McGuffin is a third generation New Mexico boot maker, handcrafting wearable pieces of art.  When she is approached by a Canadian artist and a San Francisco tattooer to create a gay themed cowboy boot, a story unravels of a unique collaboration that takes them to the heart of cowboy country in Northern Texas.  BOOTWMN is a heartwarming, intimate and at times funny portrait of the queering of a traditional art form.

Performance: drink
Kristin Nelson

Saturday, October 20, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Royal Canadian Legion, 15 Lorne St.

drink is an overt commentary on our precious natural resources and the effects of our consumer culture on them. Disposable cups were woven by hand, and in cotton on a floor loom, by some of Riding Mountain National Park’s most stunning lakes and in the artist’s studio. Kristin Nelson invites you to have a drink to help in the continuation of a new art installation on display at Neutral Ground (Regina) in December, 2018.

Closing Address: Sarah Quinton

Saturday, October 20, 8:00 PM
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre, 7 Lorne St.

A Handmade Assembly came to an end on Saturday evening with a closing address delivered by Sarah Quinton. Quinton is the Curatorial Director at the Textile Museum of Canada. She has worked in Toronto’s visual arts community for 25 years as a cultural administrator, curator, educator and artist. She has curated over 30 national and international exhibitions, with cultural inclusivity, social awareness and accessibility through education and community outreach at the forefront. Her curatorial practice includes benchmark projects that have come to define a discourse that focuses on complex intersections between art, craft and design. On the strength of this interdisciplinary arc, she is often called upon as a speaker, advisor, mentor and advocate in Canada and abroad. Quinton has taught and lectured at museums, galleries, universities and colleges in Canada, and regularly participates as a juror and advisor at universities, colleges, galleries, museums and non-profit arts organizations throughout Canada, the United States and internationally. She is widely sought for her expertise as a juror for international and national art exhibitions, national, provincial, regional and local arts councils, and has sat on numerous volunteer boards and advisory committees.

Artist Talk: seventy-six
Chris Boyne

Thursday, October 18, 11:00 AM
Owens Art Gallery, 61 York St.

For A Handmade Assembly, Chris Boyne presented the task-based project seventy-six through a story-telling lecture. seventy-six seeks to substantiate lost and fictional memory bits through the hand fabrication and manipulation of objects. Some of these memory bits may not be real—many of them are only parts of ideas, fantasies or dreams. Others do not even belong to the artist but they have all become part of an amalgam of idea and memory. The bits are varied and include searching for 2L pop bottles with opaque black bottoms, turning a soup spoon into a pike, baking blackstrap molasses bread and finding a trunk key to a Plymouth Duster muscle car.

Workshop: Rug Braiding
Lisa Schroeder

Thursday, October 18,

7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre, 7 Lorne St.

Learn some of the basics of rug braiding. Participants will be supplied with fabric, needles, thread and instruction on how to use these techniques for both functional and non functional projects.

Workshop: Family Gathering
Negar Tajgardan

Friday, October 19, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts, rm 361

There are always certain objects for us that are associated with some memories. In this workshop participants are asked to bring a photo of an object they face every day or have memories of. Based on their chosen objects they will have the opportunity to make a small replica of that object using Paper Solvy (a dissolving material) and wire. Afterward, objects can be sprayed with water to dissolve the fabric like a memory that fades away.

Exhibition Opening: Secret Citadel
Graeme Patterson

Friday, October 19, 7:30 PM
(Following BOOTWMN film screening)
Owens Art Gallery, 61 York St.

Secret Citadel explores the trials and tribulations of male friendship through an experimental stop-motion animated narrative by Sackville artist Graeme Patterson. Guided by a variety of subtle gestures and intense interactions, an anthropomorphic bison and cougar create a bond that spans all stages of maturity. Playful creativity brings them together while violent awkwardness tears them apart. Eventually the extremes of their relationship create a semi-automated existence as their various animated and live-action forms venture through a self-referential world.

Image: Still from Secret Citadel, 2013, digital video, 29:48 minutes, edition 1/5. Purchased by the Owens Art Gallery with funds from the Ruth Eisenhauer Bequest.

Workshop: Leather Appliqué
Paige Gratland

Saturday, October 20, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre,
7 Lorne St.

Craft your own leather souvenir by learning basic techniques used in traditional cowboy boot design. Each participant will: translate an image into overlay and inlay, create traceable stencils, use a skiving knife to bring a piece of leather to a feather edge, cut, assemble, glue, hammer your very own commemorative Handmade Assembly themed leather emblem. The workshop will introduce sewing with a roller foot; if equipped, feel free to complete sewing at home, or have your instructors finish and promptly mail back to you. No previous experience required. Materials included. Workshop limited to 10 participants.

Artist Project: Reliquary
Robyn Love

Ongoing throughout the Assembly
Silent Auction ending Saturday, October 20, 10:00 PM
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre, 7 Lorne Street

Struts & Faucet’s current Open Studio artist-in-residence, Robyn Love, has been collecting well-worn objects from community members for her project, Reliquary. She then transformed them, tapping into their stories and energy to create something new. The newly transformed objects will be sold in a silent auction that will end on Saturday, October 20, at 10:00 PM during the closing reception of A Handmade Assembly. Proceeds will go towards the Open Studio international artist-in-residence program at Struts & Faucet.

October 18 – 21, 2017

The seventh annual A Handmade Assembly, hosted by the Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre with support from the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University, featured workshops, talks, and projects by Rebecca Blankert (Sackville, NB), Katherine Boyer (Winnipeg, MB), Katie Marie Bruce (Lethbridge, AB), Erik Edson (Sackville, NB), Shauntay Grant & Tyshan Wright (Halifax, NS), Keeley Haftner (Chicago, IL), Deborah Margo (Ottawa, ON), Hazel Meyer (Toronto, ON), Alana Morouney (Sackville, NB), Kelly Ruth (Edmonton, AB), Diana Sherlock (Calgary, AB), Suzie Smith (Winnipeg, MB), Wing-Yee Tong (Toronto, ON), and Karen Trask (Montreal, QC).

Opening Night Roundtable Discussion

Wednesday, October 18, 7:30 pm
Sackville Curling Club

The Assembly activities began with an Opening Night Roundtable Discussion moderated by Adriana Kuiper with Katherine Boyer, Katie Marie Bruce, Kelly Ruth, and Wing-Yee Tong. Participants shared short presentations on topics related to the handmade in contemporary culture as it relates to their own research or art practices, followed by questions from the moderator and audience.

Artist Project: Considering Mending – Katie Marie Bruce

Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Over the course of A Handmade Assembly, Katie Marie Bruce embossing and embroidering the found and embedded fissures, cracks and other textural abnormalities encountered on surfaces throughout the spaces of A Handmade Assembly. The project branches out from her previous series that focused on tracing individual spaces, now collecting such incidental moments on a single sheet of paper.

Performance: Do Undo and Redo – Karen Trask

Friday, October 20, 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Mount Allison University Campus

In 2008, Trask transformed several hundred dictionaries of all types to make the work, Where the words go. Using the Japanese technique for spinning paper called ‘shifu’. She spun the dictionary pages into paper threads and slowly wound them into one giant ball. As a sculpture, it has been exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions. It is now calling her to continue its transformation to another level of engagement. For the performance, Do Undo and Redo, Trask proposes to unravel this ball of dictionary thread. She will push it through the streets of Sackville and up and down the hills of Mount Allison campus, leaving a trail of paper thread behind her. Once completely unwound, she will retrace her footsteps and rewind the thread back into a ball. This action may be repeated.

Performance : MANUFACTURING VOICES – Kelly Ruth

Friday, October 20, 9:00 pm
Sackville Curling Club

During this performance, Kelly Ruth is weaving a cloth on a floor loom. This is an act symbolically counter to the drive through pace of contemporary society. As she weaves, she is simultaneously using a contact microphone on the weaving loom, and running the sound through guitar pedals. Through continually changing the looping sounds she is creating live improvised musical compositions. The sounds created by the loom give the object a voice, which echoes the inventions of transportation, the militaristic organization of workers in large-scale industry, and mechanized industrial practises. Metronomically the sounds evoke a pulsing forward without pause towards ‘progress.’ It is this voice, which serves as a witness of civilization and shares with us its perspective of our place in history.

Closing Address: Diana Sherlock

Saturday, October 20, 8:00 pm

A Handmade Assembly will come to an end on Saturday evening with a closing address delivered by Diana Sherlock. Diana Sherlock is a Canadian independent curator, writer and educator whose projects create opportunities for contemporary artists to produce new work in response to specific collections, contexts, histories and cultures of display. Recent curatorial projects include: New Maps of Paradise (2016) with Eric Moschopedis and Mia Rushton (Nickle Galleries, Calgary); In the making (2014–15) (Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Calgary and Kenderdine College Art Galleries, Saskatoon); Folly: Château Mathieu(2009–14) (Mathieu, Normandy, France; Esplanade Art Gallery, Medicine Hat and Nickle Galleries, Calgary). Current projects include tracing the parallel histories of West German ceramics (Ricardo Okaranza: Un Certain Regard, Berlin, 2010) and the Medicine Hat clay industries in southern Alberta, and editing a publication on Canadian artist Rita McKeough’s performances and installations. Sherlock has published over 70 texts in gallery catalogues and contemporary art journals internationally including Canadian Art, BorderCrossings, CMagazine, FUSE, Blackflash, Ceramics Art and Perception, .dpi Feminist Journal of Art and Digital Culture and The Calgary Herald. An essay, “Capitalizing on Community: The Makerspace Phenomenon,” is included in the anthology Craft on Demand: The New Politics of the Handmade edited by Nicole Burisch and Anthea Black for I.B. Tauris. Sherlock teaches critical theory and professional practice in the School of Critical + Creative Studies at the Alberta College of Art + Design, Calgary.

Artist Talk: RUBBER, LEATHER, WOOD – Hazel Meyer

Thursday, October 19, 9:30 am
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

RUBBER, LEATHER, WOOD extends Meyer’s ongoing research about the role of handmade tools, equipment and textiles within queer and sexual subcultures, amateur athletics, and activist actions. Specifically Meyer is interested in world-making: how we use objects to populate, orient and build the world we want to share with others. Meyer draws on archival images, popular imagery, the ideas of José Muñoz and Sara Ahmed, and the artist’s own on-going installation and performance project Muscle Panic (2014) to tease out the radical capacity and resilience of the handmade. The talk is named for three materials that effortlessly bridge the worlds of sport and sexual subcultures.

Workshop: The Space Between Threads : A community beading circle – Katherine Boyer

Thursday, October 19, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Royal Canadian Legion

The Space Between Threads is a project for participants to join, sit, learn beading, drink tea and visit. The connecting power of stitching together creates spaces and opportunity for a particular kind of sharing. The silence born between stitches, allows for a natural group breath, that breeds confidence and opportunity to share and tell stories. Occurring around the humble space of a table and chairs, The Space Between Threads allows participants to engage in as much or as little as they are comfortable. The aim of this project is to provide access to community space and to engage in open dialogue about any and all things. As facilitator, Métis artist Katherine Boyer is on site to provide beadwork lessons, from basic to complex stitches, and to generally facilitate discussion for any interested parties. Basic materials will be made available by the facilitator, for participant use, such as: scissors, seed beads, needles and thread, paper, pencils, fabric and interfacing.

Workshop: Make a Refillable Leather Notebook – Alana Morouney

Thursday, October 19, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Royal Canadian Legion

Learn how to make a small refillable/re-useable leather notebook that you can keep in your pocket. The notebook is bound with a very simple stitch and knot, and the little booklet slips out of a soft wrap-around leather cover.

Workshop: 3D Drawing With Strings, Knots, and Nets – Wing-Yee Tong

Friday, October 20, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Royal Canadian Legion

In this workshop participants explored a variety of knot-making techniques including fishnet weaving, crochet, and other lace making techniques, as modular building blocks for constructing and drawing lines and shapes in the air.

Opening Reception : Tesselescence (Struts) – Keeley Haftner

Friday, October 20, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

For her exhibition, Tesselescence (Struts), Haftner will create an immersive installation using a tessellation pattern called “rhombille”, or “tumbling blocks.” Within the context the pattern provides, Haftner will convert a range of objects from her previous home of Chicago and donated from residents of Sackville that – for the artist – act as stand-ins for obsolescence, both planned and archaeological. These objects include broken umbrellas, broken ceramics, and cheap décor (prints of paintings, and the like) which act as substitutions for “fine art” in the home. Processes for transforming these objects will include quilting, rock grinding and tumbling, and silkscreen printing.

Artist Talk: Waste Patterns: Transforming Trash, Obsolescing, Tessellating, and Other Related Complexities – Keeley Haftner

Saturday, October 21, 11:00 am
Royal Canadian Legion

In her artist talk, Haftner will discuss her obsession with “rhombille”, or “tumbling block” pattern, and how it relates to her parallel obsession with transforming garbage into art objects. Haftner has an ongoing blog where she documents found instances of the pattern (www.rhombillion.tumblr.com), and engages processes ranging from 3D printing disposable cups to blowing glass from shards found on the street in her efforts to completely transform waste materials.

Artist Talk: Thinking Through Making – Suzie Smith

Thursday, October 19, 11:00 am
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Suzie Smith presented an artist talk about her multi faceted practice. Routed in printmaking Smith’s work plays with both traditional and experimental processes that expand off the flat surface into installation, sculpture and video. The handmade is central to her work. In particular she is interested in how craft process can inform conceptual ideas. In addition to talking about her own practice Smith also spoke about the work she does collaboratively with Parameter Press, a Risograph collective that produces limited edition artworks that are disseminated quarterly by mail.

The Work Room

Thursday & Friday, October 19 & 20, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

The Work Room is an open workshop space with refreshments, music, and a few extra bits and bobs to help your projects or to get you started on something new. This year, artist Katie Marie Bruce was in The Work Room developing an artist project over the course of A Handmade Assembly.

Artist Talk : Making Colour – Deborah Margo

Friday, October 20, 9:30 am
Owens Arts Gallery

Deborah Margo’s talk focused on the making of a new project, Making Colour, which explores the connections between gardeners, natural dye artisans and teachers, naturalists, ecologists, and visual artists. Topics included the making of her first dye garden, in Ottawa, in May 2017. In addition, she spoke about the harvesting and making of colour dyes from a variety of collected and foraged plant matter in preparation for the making of an indoor installation out of dyed silk and paper. Margo is focusing on the search and manifestation of colour found in nature as idea, material, and practice. By conceptually, poetically, and physically connecting different parts of her practice, Margo aims to have one become the outcome of the other: by growing and finding the necessary plants, then making the dyes, she has access to colour that comes from nature.  The making of an installation becomes the distillation of seed to plant to dye, where colour is impregnated into a textile’s very fibres.  It is an exploration and synthesis of ideas where each step leads to the next consequence.

Workshop : Casting the Macabre – Rebecca Blankert

Friday, October 20, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Royal Canadian Legion

This workshop is an introduction to resin mold making. Bring a small object (the stranger, the better) that can be cast into a resin trinket. This two-part process will begin with a mold created from your object. The resin will be poured during the first night of the workshop, then come to the Heart & Pocket sale to un-mold your object, and attach it to a necklace, keychain or other functional doodad. Objects that would make a great casted bauble: small bones and skulls, weird looking rocks, old-timey keys, small figurines, doll parts, mechanical parts, lego, stiff mummified candy from your pocket, crystal shards from Thra or meteorites.

Opening Reception: Other Stories – Erik Edson

Friday, October 20, 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Owens Art Gallery

This exhibition presents Sackville-based Erik Edson’s latest large-scale installation ruins(2017), alongside a selection of work that spans almost two decades of the artist’s career. Initially known as a printmaker, Edson’s practice expanded into sculpture and installation informed by the qualities of his original medium, in particular the way printmaking produces images by means of a process of translation. For Edson, neither looking at nor making pictures are neutral (let alone natural) experiences, and through use of found images, stage-set like formats, and other tactics that draw attention to the act of viewing, he demonstrates how our visual experiences are embedded both in the habits of the body, and in a circulating web of imagery. ruins exemplifies Edson’s longstanding interest in the natural world, so often the site of human fantasies of pure experience, and yet the subject of perhaps the most richly-developed visual cultural archive of all.

The exhibition is curated by Pan Wendt, and co-produced by the Confederation Centre Art Gallery and the Owens Art Gallery.

Workshop: Locating Colour – Deborah Margo

Saturday, October 21, 12:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts, Mount Allison

An introduction to the possibilities of local plants being made into plant dyes and their applications to different kinds of textiles. The gathering and storing of plant matter will be covered as well as recipes for making plant dyes. Finally, selected textiles will be dyed. From beginning to end, this is a hands-on workshop, with all materials provided.

October 18 – 21, 2017

The seventh annual A Handmade Assembly, hosted by the Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre with support from the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University, featured workshops, talks, and projects by Rebecca Blankert (Sackville, NB), Katherine Boyer (Winnipeg, MB), Katie Marie Bruce (Lethbridge, AB), Erik Edson (Sackville, NB), Shauntay Grant & Tyshan Wright (Halifax, NS), Keeley Haftner (Chicago, IL), Deborah Margo (Ottawa, ON), Hazel Meyer (Toronto, ON), Alana Morouney (Sackville, NB), Kelly Ruth (Edmonton, AB), Diana Sherlock (Calgary, AB), Suzie Smith (Winnipeg, MB), Wing-Yee Tong (Toronto, ON), and Karen Trask (Montreal, QC).

Opening Night Roundtable Discussion

Wednesday, October 19, 7:30pm
Sackville Curling Club

The Assembly activities began with an Opening Night Roundtable Discussion moderated by Adriana Kuiper with Lesley Johnson, kipjones, Claudia Manley, and Becca Taylor. Participants shared short presentations on topics related to the handmade in contemporary culture as it relates to their own research or art practices, followed by questions from the moderator and audience.

Workshop: Latex Readymades
– kipjones

Friday, October 21 & Saturday, October 22
Struts & Faucet

This workshop was an introduction into the properties of latex rubber. Participants learn how latex can be used as a soft replica of positive forms. kipjones is an active and experienced Toronto public artist, sculptor and instructor. His artistic research addresses the complex potentialities of space through site-specific installations, public art and object making. www.kipjonesart.com

Workshop: Reverse Glass Painting
– Lesley Johnson

Saturday, October 22, 1:00pm – 5:00pm
Struts & Faucet

A traditional sign painting method that can be seen on storefronts around the world, painting backwards on pieces of glass allows the art to be protected by the glass itself. In this workshop, Lesley provided visual examples of a range of styles and approaches, and worked with participants, using traditional sign painting techniques, in creating their own piece that should actually last forever.

Artist Talk: We On A Ultra Light Beam: Searching for the Sacred in Popular Culture
– Sarah Gotowka

Thursday,October 20, 9:30am
Owens Art Gallery

Sarah Gotowka’s art practice is rooted in textiles and popular culture. She focuses on contemporary issues and figures such as twerking, Beyoncé and singledom, as well as the consumption of alcohol in the club scene. Through handmade objects and digital installations, she questions if the sacred could still exist in these appropriated rituals and spaces. Parallel to this conceptual body of work, Gotowka co-founded The Color Collective in collaboration with two other artists to grow natural dye plants in Montréal without the interference of chemicals or machines. It was then that she fell in love with growing color and began implementing natural mediums into her ongoing textile and material practice. This artist talk chronicled Gotowka’s strange journey from Beyoncé, to natural dyes, to Thai food, to flowers, then back to Beyoncé. www.saagoto.com

Workshop: The Work Room
– Tara K. Wells

Thursday, October 20 & Friday,

October 21
1:00pm – 5:00pm
Struts & Faucet

The Work Room is an open workshop space with refreshments, music, and a few extra bits and bobs to help your projects or to get you started on something new! Participants were free to drop-in and come and go as they wished. Tara K. Wells ran The Work Room again this year, this time making dimensional fabric flowers. She gladly demonstrated how to hand sew some pretty sweet flowers using fabric scraps.

Workshop: Eco Printing
– Shoshanna Wingate

Friday October 21, 9:30am – 2:00pm
Struts & Faucet

In this workshop, participants learned a variety of eco printing techniques, including fabric preparation and how to shift colour with additives such as vinegar and rust, using local leaves and flowers to create a beautiful silk scarf. Shoshanna Wingate is a textile artist and writer. Under the label Shoshi Designs, she creates elegant wearable art using natural dyes and eco prints, or contact prints with plants. www.shoshidesigns.com

Workshop: Privately Public
– Ursula Johnson

Saturday, October 22, 10:00am – 1:00pm
Struts & Faucet

Ursula Johnson shared various methodologies for public participation that she has employed within her artistic practice. Johnson is an emerging performance and installation artist of Mi’kmaw First Nation ancestry. She graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design and has participated in over 30 group shows and 5 solo exhibitions. Johnson’s recent work Mi’kwite’tmn employs various sculptural mediums to create consideration from her audience about aspects of intangible cultural heritage as it pertains to the consumption of traditional knowledge within the context of colonial institutions. www.ursulajohnson.ca

Closing Address
– Heather Anderson

Saturday, October 22, 8:00pm
Struts & Faucet

A Handmade Assembly came to an end on Saturday evening with a closing address delivered by Heather Anderson. Anderson shared a collection of thoughts inspired by what she had observed over the course of the four-day event and offered some insight into the role that the handmade plays in contemporary culture. Heather Anderson is interested in art practices that engage the social, political, and emotional complexities of our experiences in the world through aesthetic encounters across a range of media and approaches. Anderson is curator at the Carleton University Art Gallery.

Artist Talk: Catching Up The Slender Thread: string figures and loose threads
– Anne J Steves

Thursday, October 20, 11:00am
Owens Art Gallery

Within the motions of string on fingers are held tales of place, community and family. Passed on person to person, face to face, hand to hand, these memories bare the mark of the conditions in which they were formed. As an element of her craft-aesthetic art practice, BC artist Anne J Steves has been working with string as a means of measuring place and recording community. Her artist talk provided a background into the collecting of string games, the ephemeral nature of string communications and the ways in which these handmade histories have influenced her practice. www.annejsteves.myportfolio.com

Workshop: English Paper Piecing
– Shake-n-Make

Thursday, October 20, 1:00pm – 5:00pm
Struts & Faucet

The Shake-n-Make art collective hosted an English Paper Piecing workshop. Part of an exhibition titled The Hand of Craft, the Shake-n-Make collective is creating a 14’ x 16’ quilt top using the English paper piecing technique. By taking in the workshop, participants agreed to leave their finished materials behind for incorporation into the quilt top, to be exhibited at The Cotton Factory in Hamilton, Ontario, in May 2017. All participants are credited as contributors. Shake-n-Make (members: Claudia Manley & Liss Platt) is a queer art collective whose work directly references the 1970s while elevating craft and subject matter beyond kitsch to speak to our current moment.

Artist Project: Coy Wolf dinner menu
– Lesley Johnson

October 19 – 22
Coy Wolf Bistro

Lesley designed the Coy Wolf dinner menu in her hand lettering and illustration style that can be seen in some of the top restaurants in NY. Lesley Johnson is a NYC based lettering artist. A Mount A grad and former Sackvillian, Lesley moved to the United States a few years ago to pursue her illustration and hand-lettering. Her work has appeared in Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine, and in many of the top restaurants in NYC. Her lettering was given an Award of Excellence by Communication Arts Magazine and was featured in their 2014 Typography Annual. www.lesleyjohnsonimages.com

Artist Talk: pihtonikewin
– Breanna Little, Niki Little, Becca Taylor

Friday, October 21, 2:30pm
Owens Art Gallery

The animal hide represents community, sacrifice, ceremony, and the interdependence of Nature and its inhabitants. Traditionally, women would gather together in the community to prepare the hides working communally, sharing teachings, conversations, and spending time together. Contemporarily, the value, ceremony, and spirit of the animal have lost its presence within the production of the hide and the sense of community and legacy of the teachings has vanished. Throughout the presentation, the artists explored the concepts surrounding pihtonikewin, the memories within each of the makers, evoking personal narratives around family stories, genetic memory, cultural teachings and how we engaged the urban landscape attempting to experience/personalize a Traditional practice, exploring their own cultural understanding of the materials, and their relation to the land.

October 21 –24, 2015

The fifth annual A Handmade Assembly, hosted by the Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre with the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University, featured workshops, talks, and projects by Daniel Barrow (Montreal, QC), Andrea Beverley (Sackville, NB), Melanie Colosimo (Halifax, NS), Sarah Evans (Sackville, NB), Erik Edson (Sackville, NB), Shamus Griffith (Sackville, NB), Danielle Hogan (Fredericton, NB), Megan Ingman (Sackville, NB), Myung-Sun Kim (Toronto, ON), Lucy MacDonald (Sackville, NB), Clint Neufeld (Osler, SK), Claire Ellen Paquet (Montreal, QC), Vicky Sabourin (Montreal, QC) and Roberto Santaguida (Germany).

Opening Night Roundtable Discussion

Wednesday, October 21, 7:30 pm
Royal Canadian Legion

The Assembly activities began with an Opening Night Roundtable Discussion moderated by Lucy MacDonald with Daniel Barrow, Melanie Colosimo, Myung-Sun Kim, and Roberto Santaguida. Through a series of questions followed by informal conversation, MacDonald led a discussion about each artist’s relationship to the handmade in their own art practices. The Opening Night Roundtable Discussion was an opportunity to gain some insight into how A Handmade Assembly came together, meet the participants, and find out more about what you could expect to see over the course of the four-day event. An opening night social followed.

Artist Talk: Living with a Horse in my Bedroom – Vicky Sabourin

Friday, October 23, 9:30 am
Royal Canadian Legion

Vicky Sabourin worked for 3 months creating a felted horse in her bedroom. Every morning, she had to step over the horse to get out of bed. Through that unusual proximity, a strange kinship developed between her and the felted horse. Living with a horse in my bedroom is an artist talk that went behind the scenes, in the very intimate process and production of the piece Warmblood. Sabourin shared her personal and extensive archive that branches from DIY felting videos, hoof dissections on YouTube to strange selfies and absurd moments like digging a horse grave in her brother’s backyard. The anecdotes related to this piece were unusual; some were lighthearted while others are gruesome. The presentation was casual, intimate and anecdotal.

Performance: Warmblood – Vicky Sabourin

Friday, October 23, 8:00pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Sabourin’s most recent work investigates tensions between the wild and the civilized. The tableau vivant Warmblood explores the very intimate relationship between people and the highly symbolic motif of the horse: at once noble, fierce, devoted and emblematic of the power dynamic we maintain with the world. While the title, Warmblood refers to the eponymous horse breed; the piece points to the Western obsession with wilderness and its captivating and seducing power. Using elements from tale and psychoanalysis, this new body of work viscerally explores inner animalism and the idea of control.

Closing Address with Danielle Hogan

Saturday, October 24, 8:00 pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

A Handmade Assembly came to an end on Saturday evening with a closing address delivered by Danielle Hogan at Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre. The closing address was a collection of thoughts inspired by what Hogan has observed over the course of the four-day festival, and offered some insight into the role the handmade plays in contemporary culture. Karaoke followed.

Artist Talk: Habit – Claire Ellen Paquet

Thursday, October 22, 9:30 am
Royal Canadian Legion

Claire Ellen Paquet talked about her practice and her current project, Habit, as it unfolded throughout the month of October. Paquet sewed the same dress, once a day, for 30 days and posted updates on the Handmade Assembly online artist-in-residence blog: www.ahandmadeassembly.wordpress.com

Knit a Hitchhiker Shawl ~ an adventure in increasing and decreasing with Megan Ingman

Thursday, October 22, 1:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Royal Canadian Legion

This shawl featured a simple and repetitive pattern creating an asymmetrical shallow trapezoid that looks great in a hand dyed yarn. This workshop was ideal for beginner knitters who had never followed a pattern before, or those with more experience who were intrigued by how to knit a garter shawl on the bias using increases.

All materials were provided (yarn, needles, and the pattern).

Artist Talk: Unchained Melanie – Melanie Colosimo

Friday, October 23, 11:00 am
Royal Canadian Legion

Colosimo addressed the key determinants in the meaning of her work; materials, process and living in the Maritimes. Committing to the simple materials of cut paper and graphite, she creates large-scale drawings and paper sculptures of fences, structures and architecture to explore memory, transitory states and trace imagery.

Exhibition: Dark Watercolours – Daniel Barrow

Opening Reception Friday, October 23, 7:00pm
Owens Art Gallery

In the exhibition, Dark Watercolours, Barrow premiered a body of projection installation, drawings and sculptural pieces which expand upon dualistic themes from previous works, but also represent more recent internal debates about drawing and sculpture, artwork and medium, artwork and easel, form and symbol, high and low. Barrow’s sculptures are microcosms of his studio process. They are multi-functional objects that simultaneously act as easels for drawings, paintbrush holders and basins, as well as figurative sculptures that mine the theatricality of display.

Exhibition: Frontier Shadow – Shamus Griffith

Friday, October 23, 10:00pm
Thunder & Lightning Ideas Ltd.

Frontier Shadow is a collection of new and recent work by artist Shamus Griffith, which will be shown at the local public house, Thunder & Lightning, from October 23 to November 24, 2015.

Two-part Plaster Mold Making with Clint Neufeld

Saturday, October 24, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm
Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts, Mount Allison University

Learn the process of plaster mold making. Clint Neufeld took participants through the steps, helped to solve problems, and offer advice. He shared some more complex plaster mold making techniques and a short presentation on his own mold making processes. Participants brought two objects to cast, each no larger than 8″ x 8″ x 8″. The objects were not precious, as they had the chance to get dirty.

What Are Zines For? Independent Print Culture in Sackville – Facilitated by Dr. Andrea Beverley and Sarah Evans

Thursday, October 22, 11:00 am
Royal Canadian Legion

In 2015, a small team interviewed 20 local zinesters about their experience of making zines in Sackville. Questions included: Do you think of zine-making as innovative? Do you feel like you’re part of a community because of zines? Has living in Sackville changed your zine-making practices? This discussion was a time to share some of the (amazing!) responses and to wonder together about the (radical?) potential of zines in our town.

Trading Cards with Tara K. Wells / The Work Room

Thursday, October 22 + Friday, October 23
1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Tara K. Wells was at The Work Room with materials and examples to get participants started on their own series of trading cards. Participants could try their hand at carving DIY stamps for making easy multiples. All materials were provided and absolutely no experience was required.

Festival goers could also bring any current project to The Work Room and make some progress in the company of others. The Work Room was an open workshop space with refreshments, music, and a few extra bits and bobs to help peoples’ projects or to get them started on something new!

Explore Evolving Food Culture and History with Myung-Sun Kim

Friday, October 23, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Royal Canadian Legion

Culinary practices and food culture change and adapt over time with the introduction of new ingredients through historical moments, such as migration, expeditions, war, technology and colonialism. Over time, these changes become traditional and classic dishes. The workshop explored evolution of culinary practices and its related history through discussions and hands-on exercises. Participants were highly encouraged to share their own experiences, knowledge and history to contribute to the discussion. During the workshop, the participants were offered Korean food with its history from the artist’s research. All tools were provided for the exercises.

Artist Project: Habit – Claire Ellen Paquet

Handmade Assembly online artist-in-residence blog
www.ahandmadeassembly.wordpress.com

Claire Ellen Paquet says that she is not a disciplined person. She has been meaning to sew one particular dress for over a year now, thinking of it as her ideal dress, but she can never get around to making it. As punishment she has decided to make herself sew the same dress, once a day, for 30 days. In doing so she hopes to examine her relationship to making and to her self-image. Paquet is sharing updates about this project on the Handmade Assembly online artist-in-residence blog throughout the month of October.

Handmade Study Break: Drawing Games with Daniel Barrow

Saturday, October 24, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Owens Art Gallery

This Handmade Study Break, Daniel Barrow hosted an afternoon of drawing games. With just the simplest of tools—paper, pencils and pens, participants took part in a playful, sometimes collaborative drawing event. No previous drawing experience was necessary. Handmade Study Breaks are informal, artist-led workshops for everyone.

October 22 – 25, 2014

The fourth annual A Handmade Assembly, hosted by the Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre with support from the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University, featured workshops, talks and projects by Kaeli Cook (Sackville, NB), Paula Jean Cowan & Chris Down (Sackville, NB), Ray Fenwick (Winnipeg, MB), David Hoffos (Lethbridge, AB), Christine Kim (Toronto, ON), Adriana Kuiper (Sackville, NB), Amanda McCavour (Toronto, ON), Janine Rogers (Sackville, NB), Karen Stentaford (Sackville, NB), Kara Stone (Toronto, ON), Rachel Thornton (Sackville, NB), Tara K Wells (Sackville, NB) and Mitchell Wiebe (Halifax, NS).

Opening Night Roundtable Discussion

Wednesday, October 22, 2014, 7:30pm
Royal Canadian Legion

The Assembly activities began with an Opening Night Roundtable Discussion moderated by Adriana Kuiper with Ray Fenwick, David Hoffos, Amanda McCavour, and Kara Stone. Through a series of questions followed by informal conversation, Kuiper lead a discussion about each artist’s relationship to the handmade in their own art practices and what they think it means to make something by hand. The Opening Night Roundtable Discussion is an opportunity to gain some insight into how A Handmade Assembly came together, meet the participants, and find out more about what you can expect to see over the course of the four-day event. An opening night social followed.

Workshop: Handmade Videogame Controllers
Kara Stone

Friday October 24, 2014
9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Royal Canadian Legion, 15 Lorne Street

Make your own videogame controller, musical instrument or keyboard! Create handmade interactive new media by mashing together crafting and electronics and discuss the feminist history of the relationship between crafting and technology. Using a MakeyMakey, each participant learned how to make cool and crafty interactive peripherals and wearables.

Exhibition: May it Always Be
Paula Jean Cowan and Chris Down

Thunder & Lightning Ltd.

These drawings were made on our dining room table, during naps and after the bedtime of our then-one-and-half-year-old son. Their circular supports were traced from the lid of our pasta pot and their images are emblems of our shifting domestic circumstances. They were made through a process of “call and response”, one drawing begun, its pair a counterpoint. Their narratives are cryptic – private responses to the mundane events that structure our everyday existence. Some are joyous. Some are laments. Others are talismans of protection or remembrance. They are small gestures in an ongoing conversation between two artists who share a life.

Handmade Study Break: Retro Photo
Tintype photography with Karen Stentaford

Saturday 25 October 2:00 – 5:00 pm
Owens Art Gallery

This Handmade Study Break participants were asked to join Karen Stentaford for an introduction to tintype photography. They shared the frame in group portrait sessions taking place throughout the afternoon, watched as images were developed in a portable darkroom and got a rare first-hand look at this popular nineteenth century process used to create the original instant photograph.

Karen Stentaford is photography technician and a lecturer in the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University. Working mainly in large format photography, Karen also uses toy cameras, pinhole photography and historic processes where elements of chance and surprise are at play.

For this Handmade Study Break Karen was working with Christie Lawrence, her partner in Photomatic: Travelling Tintype Studio, a project that they have taken on the road over the last year and a half. They have set up Photomatic in towns and cities throughout New Brunswick as well as Halifax, NS and Eastport, Maine.

Handmade Study Breaks are informal, artist-led workshops for everyone. Take a break, come on out and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate too. It’s free. Organized by the Owens Art Gallery in conjunction with A Handmade Assembly.

Artist Talk: Christine Kim

Thursday, October 23, 2014, 10:30am
Royal Canadian Legion

For the past few years, Kim has been straddling the boundaries between craft, contemporary art, and design. For the Handmade Assembly, she shared her work with an emphasis on studio process. Her interests lie within the ‘post-medium’ era, where the language that frames the artwork has gained more significance than material competence. Kim traced her own process and practice in order to share moments where her hand informed her head, and the materials and processes dictated the product and presentation. Kim tries to strike a balance between the mastery of material and technique, and being mindful of both when framing and presenting the product with language. It is this reconnection between body and mind that she explored in this artist talk – specifically, how the gestures of folding, cutting and layering play a role in her studio process and work.

The Work Room

Thursday, October 23 & Friday, October 24
1:00pm – 5:00pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Participants were invited to bring their on-the-go projects and drop by Struts & Faucet to get some work done in the company of others, or maybe even start something new. Refreshments, music, and a few extra bits and bobs were provided to help with work.

Workshop: Cut Paper Sculpture
Christine Kim

Friday October 24, 2014
1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Royal Canadian Legion, 15 Lorne Street

This workshop invited participants to enter a paper forest, as Christine Kim talked about her studio practice as a cut paper artist through images, prototypes, and paper samples. She shared some of her favourite tools and techniques through the construction of one cut paper sculpture. Using a slot sculpture for a dodecahedron, participants cut and perforated the paper to create new possibilities for form, shape and shadow.

Open Studio artist in residence Amanda McCavour

Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

McCavour’s focus during the residency has been to explore the making process in the space of the studio, playing with embroidery’s structural potential through stacking, folding and forming her thread drawings.

Artist Talk: Amanda McCavour

Saturday October 25, 2014, 10:30 am
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre, 7 Lorne Street, All are welcome.
Amanda McCavour has been Struts & Faucet’s artist in residence since September 22, 2014. McCavour shared her past and present work in an informal talk in her studio at 7 Lorne Street.

Closing Address: Janine Rogers

Saturday October 25, 2014, 8:00 pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre, 7 Lorne Street, All are welcome.
A Handmade Assembly cam to an end on Saturday evening with a closing address delivered by Janine Rogers at Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre. The closing address was a collection of thoughts inspired by what Rogers had observed over the course of the four-day festival, and offered some insight into the role the handmade plays in contemporary culture. Karaoke followed.

Workshop: Experimental Layers
Amanda McCavour

Thursday, October 23, 2014, 1:00pm – 5:00pm
Royal Canadian Legion

Participants ere invited to construct dynamic, textured, mixed media surfaces through the use of machine and hand embroidery. With the use of a water soluble stabilizer, they were encouraged to experiment with a variety of materials to create textured, embellished grounds where stitches hold the surface and materials together. Thin plastics, papers, yarns, fabrics, threads and leaves were used in this workshop, and the constructed cloth were used for collages, wearable art pieces, or as grounds for more embroidery.

Workshop: Intro to Tatting
Kaeli Cook

Friday October 24, 2014, 9:00am – 12:00pm
Royal Canadian Legion

In this workshop participants learned the dying art of handcrafting lace through a series of knots and loops.

Exhibition: Waiting in the Sitting Room

A Collaborative Installation Workshop with David Hoffos and Katie Patterson, Patrick Allaby, Rachel Thornton, Soo Lee, Ben Egli, Emma Hoch, Chris Donovan and Hailey Guzik

Exhibition: Accumulations
Rachel Thornton

Thunder & Lightning Ltd. special projects gallery

These works came to be after a summer of making, researching, and visiting sites that have a history of witchcraft, or at least of those accused of being involved in dark magic. Drawings, collected objects, gilded flora and embroideries are combined on fabric, representing trilogies of magical sisters. These drawings serve as one perspective on the limitless possibilities of magic.

Under Ground Art, aka Contemporary Futureprimitivism: A Cave-Drawing Party Situation

Ray Fenwick & Mitchell Wiebe
Saturday October 25, 2014
12:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre, 7 Lorne Street

Hosts for the party were Ray Fenwick and Mitchell Wiebe, who first met while wandering deep in the caves of the Manitoba–Maritime Pan-Canadian Cavern System. After years roaming underground together making art and music (and nurturing friendships with the strange fauna of the caverns) they recently surfaced from a crack in the Save-Easy parking lot. They immediately stumbled through the harsh sun to the safe, dark confines of Struts Gallery.

The primary aim of the Cave-Drawing Party was to cover the walls in drawings, and that in a dark, strangely lit environment whose cave-floors rolled with a shroud of mist. Like all cave drawings, the marks that were made will be re-discovered in 30,000 years. Like all “Cave-Drawers”, we must ensure that we leave no clues as to what our life was like. It is the duty of the cave-drawer to leave only enigmatic markings, abstractions, false languages and historical red-herrings. Live ambient music and refreshments were provided.

October 23 – 26, 2013

The third annual A Handmade Assembly, presented by the Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre with the support of the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University, featured workshops, talks and projects by Humberto Duque (Mexico City), Erik Edson (Sackville, NB), Sarah Evans (Sackville, NB), Sean Frey (Toronto, ON), Inga Hansen (Sackville, NB), Yoko Homareda (Nantes, France), Amy Lockhart (Guelph, ON), Robyn Love (Queens, NY), John Murchie (Sackville, NB), Jerry Ropson (Sackville, NB), Seripop (Montreal, QC), Amy Siegel (Toronto, ON), Alicia Steeves (Lunenberg, NS) and Anna Torma (Baie Verte, NB).

Artist Talk: Seripop

Wednesday, October 23, 7:30pm
Owens Art Gallery

Seripop (Yannick Desranleau & Chloe Lum) presented an artist talk as part of the Visiting Artist Program developed in collaboration between the Mount Allison University Department of Fine Arts, the Owens Art Gallery, and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre. This event kicked-off A Handmade Assembly, and was followed by a reception at the Royal Canadian Legion hosted by the sculpture students at Mount Allison University.

Workshop: Under the Camera Animation with Amy Lockhart

Friday, October 25, 1:00pm – 5:00pm
Royal Canadian Legion

Through a short screening of animated films, hands-on demonstrations and instructional hand-outs, students learned how to make jointed paper puppets using instructor Amy Lockhart’s trademark techniques. The workshop focused on drawn and object animation (Cut out paper, beads, feathers, anything that can fit under a camera we’ll animate it!). Lockhart demonstrated how to animate the four types of movement (acceleration, deceleration, constant and erratic) and other basic principles such as “stretch” and “squash” using paper cut outs – these ideas apply to both object and drawn animation. This workshop gave students a firm grasp of basic ‘Under The Camera Animation’ techniques.

Exhibition: Erik Edson – Believer

Friday, October 25, 2013
Thunder & Lightning Ltd.

Erik Edson lives and works in Sackville, New Brunswick. His printmaking and installation work has been exhibited across Canada. Most recently he showed his work in Creature Comforts at Open Studio, Toronto; and at The Tides Institute, Maine. His most recent installation Live on this Planet was a sight specific work for the Music Hall, Sackville.

Workshop: Yoko Homareda – Repetition
A Handmade Study Break

Saturday, October 26, 3:00pm – 5:00pm
Owens Art Gallery

In this workshop motifs were created repetitive drawn images on paper with pen and ink. Participants explored the creation and modulation of their repetitive patterns as they progressed, inspired by repeating motifs in nature, landscapes, design and even knitting. These patterns were used to create folded envelopes, small journals or Japanese book covers.

Catastrophe Crochet

Wednesday, October 23, 9:00pm
Royal Canadian Legion

A crochet-a-thon and social gathering hosted by the sculpture students at Mount Allison University to celebrate the launch of this year’s Assembly.

Workshop: Embroidery with Anna Torma

Thursday, October 24, 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Royal Canadian Legion

In this workshop, Anna Torma talked about her practice as a fibre artist and demonstrated with pictures and hands-on fabric materials how a project usually develops from inspiration to design, execution and final selection. This hands-on workshop showed many details of completing large installation projects for a solo show as well as demonstration and teaching about some basic hand embroidery techniques.

Workshop: Rug Hooking 101 with Alicia Steeves

Friday, October 25, 1:00pm – 5:00pm
Royal Canadian Legion

This workshop introduced participants to the basics of rug hooking. They were asked to start a design and experiment with a variety of materials and foundational techniques. The participants learned what you need to get started and got to take a frame and handmade booklet home to help them work on their new skill.

Exhibition: Yoko Homareda – Something Out of Nothing

October 25 to December 8, 2013
Owens Art Gallery

I start with one movement, then another. I alter colours, play with time, with pressure, ever so slightly. Each shape, line, and volume attains its own identity. In one movement, I knit a line, a triangle and a square. By repeating my gesture, I multiply the motifs that make up a landscape. And I explore this.
– Yoko Homareda

Presentation: Inga Hansen – Fashion and Textile Conservation

Saturday, October 26, 11:00am
Royal Canadian Legion

Inga Hansen was writing her thesis to complete her graduate program Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory and Museum Practice. In this program Hansen studied primarily the conservation of fashion and textile objects. She is the manager at the Keillor House Museum and the St. James Textile Museum in Dorchester, where she currated the exhibition Small Town, Big Fashion: Fashion from Southeastern New Brunswick from the 1860s – 1960s, which opened next at the New Brunswick Museum in late November 2013.

Artist Talk: Amy Lockhart

Thursday, October 24, 10:00am
Royal Canadian Legion

Amy Lockhart screened her animations and showed images of her work, sharing some of the secrets of how her works were made, the art community she is involved with and festivals and events that she has put together. The emphasis was on D.I.Y: her motto being: high ambition – low overhead.

Workshop: Rebound Bookbinding with Sarah Evans

Thursday, October 24, 1:00pm – 5:00pm
Royal Canadian Legion

This workshop taught three methods of making books with glue and thread, using old books as materials to build new ones.

Workshop: Inter/Intra/Indra’s Net with Robyn Love

Friday, October 25, 11:00am – 1:00pm
Royal Canadian Legion

As A Handmade Assembly’s online artist-in-residence in October 2013, Robyn Love had created a physical manifestation of her relationships, both in person and online, noting where they intersect and where they never touch. Based on the idea of “Indra’s Net” which is an ancient metaphor for our interconnectedness and interdependence, the project is at once universe and highly personal. For this workshop, participants were invited to join the artist in creating a collective web of relationships using yarn, thread, paper and found objects. Participants were asked to reflect on their real life and virtual interactions over the past week as a way of generating material to create in the web.

Exhibition: Seripop (Yannick Desranleau & Chloe Lum) – Certainty: Two Times Not Really

October 25 to November 28, 2013
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

In Certainty: Two Times Not Really, Yannick Desranleau and Chloe Lum consider the space and surfaces of the gallery as a receptacle for a visual response – a vessel that will be both present and formless in the support of the resulting sentence that will be uttered. Reacting to planes and void, Desranleau & Lum used just that – through manipulation of colored papers – to create tension between volume and flatness, mass and fragility, material stress/failure and inertia.

Workshop: Shadow Play with Sean Frey & Amy Siegel

Friday October 25, 2:00pm – 5:00pm
Sackville Music Hall, Bridge Street

Participants were invited to join Sean and Amy in exploring the possibilities of live performance, video and projection art. They have been making a performative film, set in Rockport, that explores history, memory, magic and death. This workshop was an opportunity to experiment in the creation of a collective performance through the layering of multiple mediums (i.e. live video feeds, overhead projections, shadow puppetry and live painting). As they are creating a spirit world, participants were invited to bring any costumes, musical instruments and props that they saw fit.

Discussion: Are we left with as many as 12 Unanswered Questions?!
with John Murchie & Jerry Ropson

Saturday, October 26, 8:00pm
Royal Canadian Legion

An audio visual exploration of A Handmade Assemblywith time for questions, if not answers.

October 24 – 27, 2012

The second annual A Handmade Assembly, presented by the Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre with support from the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University, featured talks, workshop, and projects by Nicole Burisch (Montreal, QC), Joanna Close (Halifax, NS), Paula Jean Cowan (Sackville, NB), Daniel Espeset (Halifax, NS), Chris Foster (Toronto, ON), Gay Hansen (Jolicure, NB), Lydia Haywood-Munn (Ottawa, ON), Lucy MacDonald (Sackville, NB), Allyson Mitchell (Toronto, ON), Graeme Patterson (Sackville, NB), Sandy Plotnikoff (Toronto, ON), Karen Reimer (Chicago, IL), Ryan Statz (Calgary, AB), Karen Stentaford (Sackville, NB) and Jayne Wark (Halifax, NS).

Opening Night Roundtable Discussion

Wednesday, October 24, 7:30pm
Sackville Curling Club

The Assembly began with a roundtable discussion moderated by Nicole Burisch with Paula Jean Cowan, Allyson Mitchell, and Ryan Statz.

Artist Talk – Graeme Patterson

Thursday, October 25, 10:00am
Struts & Faucet, 7 Lorne Street.

Workshop: Bookbinding – Lucy MacDonald

Thursday, October 25, 3:00pm – 5:00pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

In this workshop we made books without glue, exploring two decorative sewing variations for single-section books and finishing our two-volume set with a practically-instant slipcase. For all levels, from beginner binders to those with experience.

Workshop: Needle Felting in 3D – Paula Jean Cowan

Friday, October 26, 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Everything else is in 3D, so why not needle felting too? This workshop offered the basics of needle felting and moved into working with the material to create 3D objects – broaches, barrette embellishments, voodoo dolls. Participants could make a bit of art to wear on their lapel (or get some sweet revenge).

Exhibition: New Civilizations // Land of Enchantment – Daniel Espeset & Chris Foster

Thunder & Lightning Ltd.

This exhibition presented two recent printed matter works by Halifax based artists Chris Foster and Daniel Espeset. Both bodies of work explored ideas of technological oblivion and dystopia through the representation of landscape. Foster’s New Civilizations is a bound book of 21 elaborate collages. The works depict improbable landscapes that integrate modern civilizations with ancient architecture, suggesting a state of flux. The publication features an essay by Halifax based Artist and Curator Kate Walchuk. Espeset’s Land of Enchantment is an unbound portfolio of seven offset-lithographic prints, a series of photographs shot over the course of several years which explore notions of tension and control inherent in the act of enchanting & being enchanted. Both works are self-published by the artists in first editions of 250 copies.

Workshop: Make do and Mend!

Saturday, October 27, 3:00pm – 5:00pm
Owens Art Gallery

This Handmade Study Break participants were invited to join menders Gay Hansen and Karen Stentaford for an afternoon of repairing, remaking and re-imagining old clothes. Gay Hansen is an accomplished knitter, skilled sewer, weaver and basket maker. Karen Stentaford is a re-worker of clothes with an experimental approach, employing pleats, zippers and fabric additions

Artist Talk – Nicole Burisch

Thursday, October 25, 11:00am
Struts & Faucet, 7 Lorne Street.

Artist Talk – Allyson Mitchell

Friday, October 26, 10:00am
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Artist Talk – Ryan Statz

Friday, October 26, 11:00am
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Workshop: Where the Rubber Hits the Road – Allyson Mitchell

Friday, October 26, 3:00pm – 6:00pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

This workshop was an opportunity for artists, community activists, academics, and event organizers to connect and share their own artwork, theoretical frameworks, and technical practices. Together we rallied our respective projects to participate in a “group hug” to helping each other get our projects done.

Exhibition: Handmade Members’ Show

Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre installed a group show of work by their members. All members were invited to bring in their work for inclusion in the exhibition.

Artist Talk – Karen Reimer

Saturday, October 27, 11:00am
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Artist Talk – Lydia Haywood-Munn

Saturday, October 27, 12:00pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Closing Address – Jayne Wark

Saturday, October 27, 8:00pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Jayne Wark is Professor of Art History at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She has published articles and exhibition catalogue essays on performance, video and conceptual art and is the author of Radical Gestures: Feminist Performance Art in North America (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006). She is curator of the Atlantic section of the touring exhibition Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada – 1965-1980 (2010-2013) and a contributor to its accompanying exhibition (Douglas & MacIntyre, 2012).

March 11 – April 3, 2011

The first edition of A Handmade Assembly was organized by Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre and the Owens Art Gallery with the participation of Eyelevel Gallery and featured talks, workshops and projects by Elisabeth Belliveau (Montreal, QC), Jenner-Brooke Berger (Halifax, NS), Carissa Carman (Bloomington, IN), Joanna Close (Halifax, NS), Paula Jean Cowan (Sackville, NB), Mireille Eagan (St. John’s, NL), Ray Fenwick (Winnipeg, MB), Kallie Garcia (Sackville, NB), Leah Garnett (Sackville, NB), Robyn Love (Queens, NY), Janet Morton (Guelph, ON), Sarah Quinton (Toronto, ON), Jerry Ropson (Sackville, NB) and Candice Tarnowski (Montreal, QC).

Opening Night Roundtable Disucssion

Thursday, March 31, 8:00pm
Sackville Curling Club

The Roundtable discussion was moderated by Sarah Quinton from the Textile Museum of Canada with artists Elisabeth Belliveau, Ray Fenwick, Robyn Love and Janet Morton.

Show & Tell: Jerry Ropson

Friday, April 1, 11:00am
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre.

Craft-In with Paula Jean Cowan

Friday, April 1, 3:00pm – 5:00pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

People flooded the gallery for a group craft-in with some snacks and chatting and sharing. In the afternoon spent with Paula Jean Cowan she showed a few slides and spoke about her art practice and about crafting and where she sees the two intersect. This was an informal affair with Paula telling stories and having conversation with the audience about their own experience while everyone worked on their latest projects.

Exhibition: Ray Fenwick’s Open Studio & Ambling Eddies members show

Opening Reception
Friday, April 1, 9:00pm – 11:00pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Discussion: Janet Morton

Friday, April 2, 11:00am
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

A Conversation with Janet Morton about her work and the questions she has since yarn-bombing and the handmade in general hit popular culture. Coffee, snacks and a cozy atmosphere were included.

Project Launch – Jenner-Brooke Berger

Saturday, April 2, 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Thunder & Lightning Ltd.

Part of Eyelevel Gallery’s Print Out Loud! Artist Residency.

Embroidery lesson and high-noon tea with Elisabeth Belliveau

Friday, April 1, 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Secrets of stitchery covered the classics from fly stitch to feather stitch and everyone’s favorite the French knot among other gems. The workshop included some high-noon tea action and an inspirational slide show of embroidery from rags to riches.

Introduction to Natural Dyes with Joanna Close

Friday April 1, 1:00pm – 5:00pm. The Little Armadillo, Sackville, NB.

Using plants and extracts from fibres such as wool, silk and cotton, workshop participants learned to make natural dye. Household items such as onionskins, tea, marigolds and beet juice were used as dye stuffs. Participants learned how to make light fast colours and dyed a variety of textiles beautiful shades of blue, purple, yellow and more!

MEND / RÉPARER: Candice Tarnowski

Saturday, April 2, 1:00pm – 4:00pm
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre

Participants took time to experiment, innovate and interact with one-another toward taking delight in the process of mending and perhaps applying its principles to other reparations called for in daily life. Techniques included darning, patching, storage and laundering with the intention of assisting participants in getting the last possible ounce of wear out of their clothes and household things. Discussion, demonstrations, slides and finished examples were used.

Project Launch & Artist Talk – Carissa Carman

Sunday, April 3, 10:00am
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre