tied together

I read somewhere that artists struggle to make artwork in difficult times, that when surrounded by pain and suffering, the task of finding value in art and setting time aside to make it can feel futile and even self-indulgent. At times I can feel this weight, especially in recent years.

Assemblage II, mixed media (detail)

Michelle Sirois Silver

Photo: Ted Clarke

I get caught up in the loop of wondering if art matters and, even if it does matter, who cares anyway? But let me ask you: Is there value in creating a space where narratives about the human condition are brought to light? And do we really need to create spaces where internal and external conversations and shared experiences connect people to one another or to an idea or object?

Openwork Sampler. Early to mid 20th c.

Textile Museum of Canada

I’m a searcher who looks for those threads that connect us. Sometimes they’re big and bold, but often it’s the brief encounters, quiet moments and everyday objects that captivate and give me clarity.

TIED TO THE PAST

In the Fall I was teaching in Ontario and I had some free time to visit the Textile Museum of Canada. I had just missed Colour Improvisations 2: An International Exhibition of Contemporary Quilts which had closed the week before and Beads, They’re Sewn So Tight which was in the process of being installed.

The one gallery that was open featured Crosscurrents: Canada in the Making. I’m going to be honest here: I sighed when I walked through the museum doors.

I envisioned a conventional exhibition of Euro- and Eastern Canada-centric settler art. To an extent, that’s what it was, but there was something different about this collection. Lead curator Roxanne Shaughnessy had managed to select a body of work that illustrates stories that reach beyond the historical artifacts.

Berta Cassin. Needlework Sampler. Ontario. Early 20th c.

Textile Museum of Canada

Here were stories about people, weavers and their looms, about men and women who had the skills to design, piece and hand-stitch geometric quilts.

Quilt. Detail. Ontario. Late 19th c.

Textile Museum of Canada

Photo: Michelle Sirois Silver

Couvre boutonne, St. Lawrence Valley, Quebec. Late 19th c.

Textile Museum of Canada

I could only imagine the complexity and ingenuity of the piecework, rugs, and blankets knowing that they were often working with limited resources.

Couvre boutonne (detail), St. Lawrence Valley, Quebec. Late 19th c.

Textile Museum of Canada

As I walked through the exhibit, I began to comprehend not only the mastery but also the value of these skills and how essential they were for survival. It was a shift for me that brought into focus my familial connection to the past and the handmade that had been quietly and seamlessly passed down from generation to generation.

TIED TO THE EVERYDAY

At the Art Gallery of Ontario, I saw Anthropocene, a photo-based exhibit which documents our industrial footprint on the physical surface of the planet. Powerful. Anthropocene’s scope is epic. In my opinion its intent is to shock and awe, to compel the viewer to take action. As one leaves Anthropocene there is an interactive component that asks viewers to choose the feeling that best describes their experience. If I remember correctly the feeling that was picked most often was “overwhelmed.”

On another floor, I came across a huge discarded and reclaimed tarpaulin by Montreal-based artist Betty Goodwin (1923-2008) that held my eye.

Tarpaulin 8. Betty Goodwin

Art Gallery of Ontario

My first instinct was to keep moving through the gallery, but because it was a textile I stopped to consider the work. I found its simplicity brash and oddly mesmerizing.

The experience of Goodwin’s Tarpaulin No. 8 was altogether different. Like the scarred industrial landscape captured in the photos of Anthropocene, the surface of Tarpaulin No. 8 is also scarred by use.

Tarpaulin 8 (detail). Betty Goodwin

Art Gallery of Ontario

However, the tone of this work is intimate and deeply personal. Grayed, machine-stitch repairs, bent metal grommets, and the pungent odor of a worn, musty oil cloth create the substrate for a narrative about one’s personal connection to this object.

Goodwin creates a quiet space of engagement in which the viewer can consider and reflect. As I stood before it, I envisioned the people who repeatedly folded and unfolded this tarpaulin.

TIED TO THE PROCESS

Iris van Herpen

Royal Ontario Museum

I’m not someone who normally seeks out an haute couture exhibit. In fact, when I went to see Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion at the Royal Ontario Museum, I was squeezing it in before meeting up with my niece across the street at the Gardiner Museum.

Pressed for time I sped through Transforming Fashion, seeing 3D imagined skeletal dress forms, layers of metallic gauze, grommets and laced leather corsets.

Iris van Herpen

Royal Ontario Museum

I was curious about the choices van Herpen had made. Why these materials, this technique? How was that made? And why is each body of work so different?

I tore myself away and met up with my niece at the Gardiner where we quickly visited the exhibits and then dashed back to the ROM’s compelling van Herpen exhibit.

It’s the inquiry -- van Herpen’s fascination with the process of her work and collaboration -- that drew me in. It’s her forward-thinking approach which is often inspired by a process that doesn’t exist and the collaborative work she does in order to make it happen. Her studio becomes a lab where she develops new ideas, materials and techniques.

Iris van Herpen

Royal Ontario Museum

Her designs are strongest when in motion. She is a designer who uses the body as an armature; her work is molded and moves with a fluid motion not unlike the ripples on a pond or a goose- down feather caught in a summer’s breeze. It is beautiful to watch.

Our ties to the past, the everyday, and making art are often absorbed into the ether. But these ties also have the power to inspire us to consider something old in a new way or to explore an idea that’s just way out there. There are many things that tie us together as humans, our ability to consider, to reflect, and to explore are just a few of those things.

Photos: Michelle Sirois Silver