An Unexpected Discovery - by Regina Marzlin

 Two weeks ago, I spent a few days in Fredericton, New Brunswick. It is the capital of our neighbouring province and I was there for the first time. Fredericton is not a large city, the population is about 63000, but being the capital of the province, there was a lot to see and do. One of the stops on my list was the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, the provincial art gallery that houses important Canadian and British collections in a modern building that was expanded in 2017.

To my delight, I discovered an exhibition by Canadian sculptor and textile artist Sarah Maloney (b. 1965) called "Sarah Maloney's Pleasure Ground: A Feminist Take on the Natural World". I had seen some of her pieces before at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. This exhibition was a deep-dive into several bodies of work developed between 1993 and 2021.

 Her representations of the human body and of botanicals reference gender, pleasure, desire and power. From the wall plaque: "Meticulous, witty and historically researched, Maloney interprets mythology and symbolism in labour-intensive techniques, from welding to stitching. Her work challenges how people think about icons of Western colonialism, such as museum collections, domestic gardens, and landscape art."

The "Collect-Arrange" (No. 1,2,3) pieces depict vases from the British Museum filled with cut flowers modelled after historical botanical illustrations. It prompts questions about collecting - what is collected by public museums and by whom? It was hard to believe that those vases are embroidered!

Three life-sized stitched panels titled "Skeletal System, Circulatory System, Major Organs" depict just that. The sheer size is impressive, as is the detailed stitching.

More art dealing with body imagery (unfortunately I didn't get all the individual titles):

I really appreciated her combination of embroidery, knitting and painting with 3D objects and her sculptural approach. A very well done exhibition that I stumbled on unexpectedly. It is always satisfying to see textile art on par with all the other media in a museum setting.

Fond Memories of Good Company by Merill Comeau

A combination of recovering from an overwhelming schedule and living in the isolation of the pandemic has caused a shift in my impulse to make -- my conceptual underpinnings and the imagery I employ reflect my current sense of absence and presence.  Missing from my days is a consistent active engagement with others; present in my days is an increased awareness of my immediate environment.  The continuity in my practice is my love of working with repurposed fabrics, needles, and thread.  My interest in using traditional techniques in a new ways also endures.

In my ongoing project Fond Memories of Good Company textiles once used in my dining room and kitchen bearing the marks of food preparation and consumption are deconstructed then reconstructed into a patchwork ‘tablecloth’ which is then embroidered with outlines of tableware.  Infill stitches surround forks, spoons, and plates in a variety of styles evoke a possible record documenting the countless numbers of meals prepared and served.  

Hopefully, as we manage CoVid infections, we will return to shared meals with good company!                                                             Merill Comeau

In process: Fond Memories of Good Company by Merill Comeau