Kerrisdale community art

In the spring of 2009, I was hired by the Kerrisdale Community Centre to work with residents to create two thousand and ten postcards.You can see all the postcards here. It was my first paid gig as a community artist. It was also my first paid gig after being a full-time mum for several years.
Many of those postcards were made by students at Kerrisdale Elementary School. 
This spring, exactly 10 years later, I'll be returning to Kerrisdale Elementary to do another community art project. This time, I'll be working with the grade 6/7 classes on a weaving project that brings attention to the problem of plastic pollution in the oceans. Thanks to Artstarts in Schools and the Vancouver Biennale Big Ideas in Schools for grants to support this project.

Weaving Cultural Identities

Last summer, my daughter and I had the opportunity to participate in a Vancouver Biennale project related to one of the artworks in their current exhibition. Paradise has Many Gates is a mosque made from chain link fencing. It is currently located at Vanier Park in Vancouver.

10 textile artists and 5 graphic designers were invited to create textiles in the form of prayer rugs. As part of the project, we had a series of field trips to the Al Salaam Mosque in Burnaby, to the Musqueam Cultural Pavilion, and to the archives of the Museum of Vancouver. The artists were paired with a designer to develop the concept for a rug. Our piece is called "Find What You Need". 

Weaving in progress:

There are many layers of meaning in our rug, including some hidden messages, like the peace sign drawn onto the warp threads under the circle.

The finished rug.  Viewers are invited to find their own meaning in the piece.

Weaving Our Way

The Weaving Our Way group meets at the Dunbar Community Centre twice a month. This fall many of the weavings that the group has created were exhibited, first at the Richmond City Hall Galleria, then at the UBC Nest, and finally at the Roundhouse community centre. Many of the group members donated a personal weaving that I assembled into a collaborative blanket.

You can see a video about the project here. Many thanks to the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society for sponsoring this project.

2016 annual project

For the past few years, I've been working on a yearly project. In 2015 I made 52 small books - about one each week. In 2016 it was all about fabrics. Weaving, knitting, crochet, dyeing, printing, felting, stitching and embroidery all made an appearance during the year. 

I started the year thinking that I would make 52 art dolls, and I started work on the first one, but I was not feeling very inspired until I realized that I had chosen the wrong theme. I actually wanted to spend the year working with fabrics in different ways. When I made the decision to change my plans, the ideas just started to tumble out of my head. The first piece that I stitched includes the art doll that I had started - it's just flat rather than stuffed. The powder pink background fabric is some corduroy that I've had since the 1980s. Yes really - it was originally a skirt that I used to wear back in the day when pastels were all the rage. I cut it into a pair of baby pants that my kids wore when they were little. I hadn't anticipated how many memories would work their way into this project, but I love all the bits of nostalgia that got stitched into this project.

week 1-5

weeks 4-10

weeks 9-16

weeks 16-23

weeks 22-28

weeks 27-33

weeks 32-38

weeks 38-45

weeks 45-51

weeks 49-52

The whole year

Anvil Centre Residency Week 4

I didn't actually spend any time at the studio during this last week. I had several things that I needed to work on, but all my supplies are at home, and it made more sense to stay at home to work. I managed to finish the red/pink wrap which I'm going to call Maillardville since the inspiration for the shape came from my students at Place des Arts in Maillardville. I also got a good start on two other garments - a lightweight linen poncho and a white vest. Both these pieces need more work, but I'm happy with where they are going. I had been hoping to get more garments made this month since I have so many pieces of handwoven fabric, not to mention, hand dyed fabric as well as an assortment of scarves and things that I want to make into clothing. However, I realize that I can't rush the process, and I need to spend the time to let the ideas percolate. After some reflection, I've decided to devote my 2018 annual project to making garments. Rather than a weekly entry (as I've been doing for the past few years), my intention is to make one garment each month during 2018. If I make 12 pieces by the end of the year, I should have made a considerable dent in my "stash".

My very last task for my residency was a community engagement activity. I did a community weaving that was conveniently scheduled for the same day as the annual Santa Claus parade along Columbia Street. We had a really good turn out and many children contributed to the weaving. A few of them had learned about weaving at the exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology. I think they enjoyed having another opportunity to use their new skills.

Anvil Centre Residency Week 3

This residency is plodding along. I haven't been able to spend as much time in the studios as I had anticipated when I first considered this residency. At the time that I put in the proposal, I had no idea how much work I'd be doing just a year later. Last year my residency at Leigh Square was my major focus at the time and I was able to spend two full days on site working on my art. This year, the residency is just one of many things that I'm juggling. Although, I have studio space booked three days a week, I've only been managing to spend a few hours there on each of those days. 

This week I was able to spend some time working on an actual garment. I hand stitched the red/pink fabric into a wrap. The fabric is a 1/2 twill fabric that I wove with two heddles on my rigid heddle loom. I put the warp on the loom last year at Leigh Square and finished most of the weaving at home. I finished up the fringes during the first week of this residency.

We came up with this shape when I took this fabric to show my students at Place des Arts. It's a basic ruana shape, but with the back draped rather than cut. I decided to add a gusset at the back neckline to give a bit of ease. Since I didn't have any extra fabric, or access to a sewing machine, I decided to needle weave the gusset. I like that it is a seamless finish, but it sure took a long time, and I had to repeatedly remind myself of something that I often say to students who are impatient to finish things quickly: "This isn't a race". 

I've been doing a sketch each week at and around the Anvil Centre. I wasn't feeling very inspired the first week. The person I started sketching got up and walked away before I got very far along, so I ended up drawing the garbage cans. Last week I went over to the River Market to say hi to Susan from Cosy Yarns as well as Leslie and Alice who are involved with managing the Market. Leslie even ended up in my sketch for the week! This past week, I sketched the view from my studio window. 

I finally finished the crow tapestry. I was quite happy to get this one off the loom. I was determined to weave this piece intuitively without using a cartoon. It is okay, but I don't think that the SAORI idea of weaving without a plan is really well suited to pictoral tapestries. 

I was quite surprised to see some Salish looms in one of the offices at Anvil Centre and I barged right in and interrupted a meeting to find out about them. It turns out that the one on the left belongs to Debra Sparrow, and I think the other one is used in New West school programs. What a coincidence! Debra and I lead a weaving group that meets at the Dunbar Community Centre a couple of times each month.

Seeing these looms gave me an idea for the community engagement activity that I'll be doing as part of the residency. I'll be doing a collaborative community weaving: on December 2nd using my own Salish loom.

All the details are here: Community Weaving with Dawn Livera

I also came across a display of woven baskets from around the province that were being put out for a youth program. They belong to the New West museum. This is just a small sampling. I asked how the museum came to have so many First Nations baskets, and they said that they don't know the history of most of them, but some of them came from residents who purchased them from someone "who came knocking at their door". One of the weavers in the Dunbar group had recently brought in a piece that she had purchased that way. She said that people have got to know that "she buys things", so they show up at her door when they need some cash. The fellow from the museum was surprised to hear that the practice still continues today.

Anvil Centre Residency Week 2

I actually got a bit of weaving done this week. All my looms have warps on them right now - mainly leftover student warps from classes and workshops. I always "plan" to use warps like these to make samples mainly because I don't like wasting things - in this case it's more about the time invested in putting all those threads through those little holes than the thread. In reality they often sit around until I realize that I need to clear the looms off for my next set of classes.

I was amused that the first loom that I grabbed had the warp wrapped with some recycled paper from my time as the Literacy Outreach Coordinator in New West - in a previous life it was an agenda for one of our task group meetings.

I also did a bit of work on a tapestry that I've been working on for a while.

I finished the set of nine wish flags that I had been working on and I made another set of four. The hand stitching on these took much longer than I had expected (doesn't everything?) These are for a "house" themed show next month. I also wanted them to work for a couple of exhibitions that I have coming up next year. One is themed around recycled art and the other is about handstitched stories that were something else before becoming art. I think they tick all the boxes. I'm glad that they are done now, and that I can focus on some more weaving.

...and just like that, this residency is half over. My original proposal was to spend this time making some garments from my (previously) handwoven fabric and I haven't even started on that yet.

Anvil Centre Residency - Week 1

When I applied for this residency, I thought I would spend my time making garments from some of the hand woven fabric that I've been accumulating. I have several pieces from last year's residency at Leigh Square, as well as some other pieces that I've worked on over the year.

I've had to rethink that plan. If I want to do any garment construction, that would mean that I'd have to bring in a sewing machine, mannequin, mirror etc, etc. This residency is just one month long, and I realized that I would spend most of the first week moving in and getting stuff set up. It would likely take most of the last week to get everything packed up and taken away again. That all seems to be too much effort for what would end up being just two weeks of working time. As it turns out, I also have some other more pressing priorities.

I've somehow talked myself into being part of a group show next month with the theme of "houses" - the actual title is still under discussion. I also have a show next fall themed around hand stitched textiles. I've started work on some "wish flags" that can be used for both shows. Wish flags are like hand made prayer flags that share messages of good will when they are hung in public spaces. This group can be hung together or individually.

I did get some work done on a piece of handwoven fabric that is destined to become a garment. I spent some time twisting the fringes on this twill fabric that I started weaving last year at Leigh Square. Twisting fringe is not the most exciting thing to do, and I've obviously been putting it off for a year!. At the spinning class that I'm taking we were talking about "thigh spinning", and I realized that I could use this same technique to twist the fringe. I was quite pleased with the results.

I had taken this piece ito my weaving class at Place des Arts and we started playing around, draping it on some of the students. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but we came up with a very elegant way to wear it that would just need a bit of hand sewing to make it into a very wearable garment.

Like I said, it was a slow start to the residency.  Let's hope I get more done over the next few weeks.

Feed the chickens, weave some cloth, catch a fish, or something like that.

A potter friend of mine asked if  I could weave a table runner to coordinate with a dinner set that she was planning to make for an upcoming show. She said she wanted lots of texture, trailing bits and loose threads.

I managed to almost immediately break the sample bowl that she gave me, because that's what happens when you try to carry an armload of yarn, a warping board, and a little ceramic bowl all at the same time. Nonetheless, I thought the warp looked great with the shards of the bowl.

So there I was weaving along, thinking about the beach, using lots of blue/green and turquoise yarns, with some hits of putty and even pink. I was enjoying how the table runner was turning out, when suddenly, I decided that it needed to become a circle scarf. I had left lots of warp at the beginning, thinking it would become an extra long fringe, so when I got near the end of the warp, I unwound it and wove it in as weft. 

Here's the finished scarf with the "warp becomes weft" bit showing at the bottom. 

And here's the table setting:

Oh, and the title of this post. I know you are wondering. That's the title that the potter chose for this piece, at least it was something like that.

Conformity

My daughter recently did an "artist apprenticeship" for her high school work experience. The group decided to create artwork with the theme "conformity". Most of the students did drawings or paintings. One person created a welded metal dress, called "The Cage". This is the weaving my daughter did as her contribution to the exhibit. All the artwork is on display at the MacGill branch of the Burnaby Public Library until the end of May.

The evolution of the Sustainable Weaving Project

These are some of the things that people are working on at the Sustainable Weaving project at the Dunbar Community Centre. This is a project of the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society (VACS). I think almost everyone is a novice weaver. We are challenging people to upcycle, or use materials that they already have. Most people are using torn strips of fabric for their weaving, but one participant uses leftover bits of sock yarn. That would be her long narrow piece in the top right.

The project started out as a "Creative Weaving Project". Musqueam weaver, Debra Sparrow showed us how to use traditional Salish looms - a tradition that she and her sister revived in their community. Historically, the weavings were made with goat hair, but these days, chunky yarn made for sheep's wool is used - usually it is the six strand wool  used to make Cowichan sweaters. The problem is that you need to spin the yarn first, while maintaining the thickness. It is an overwhelming task for my little drop spindle. I started to think about using materials that are more commonly available to me - that would allow me to keep the chunky quality of this style of weaving.

This piece uses several strands of thinner yarns. I like the way that you blend the colours by combining yarns that have slightly different hues

.
I also experimented with using torn strips of fabric to make a "rug rag" style weaving and came up with this weaving. :

Since VACS had a stash of fabric scraps that needed a purpose, the Sustainable Weaving Project.

We are hoping that everyone who participates in the project will contribute a small weaving, perhaps with a symbol that has meaning to them. We will combine all the contributions to make a larger collaborative piece. We don't yet know what form the finished piece will take. We will let that emerge organically from the materials.When it is completed, it will be displayed at the Dunbar Community Centre.

Our Sustainable Weaving sessions are on the 1st and 3rd Mondays of each month 4-6pm at Dunbar Community Centre in Vancouver. They are free and open to drop-in visitors.

All about the kids

It's Spring Break here, but this is the first year that my own kids do not have a break at the same time. My older daughter is in her first year of university, so she had a break back in February. Since no one wanted to miss school (really!) we're staying home.

Last week, I did get to spend some time with other people's children. On Wednesday, I was at the Katzie Children's Festival. I took my Salish loom and we did a collaborative weaving.

Lots of the kids knew what they were doing since they've done this type of weaving at school, and yes, those are the ends of balloons that you can see in the finished weaving.

On Friday, I subbed for the regular instructor at the Place des Arts Spring Break Camp. I had 35 kids that morning. fortunately not all at the same time. We made felted easter eggs.

Leigh Square residency - reflections

Last fall, I did a three month artist residency at Leigh Square in Port Coquitlam. I had some expectations of what I wanted to accomplish during the residency.

Before I started I made a list of things that I wanted to work on. Here's the list (and my comments on what got done):

✔1. Weave on my rigid heddle looms:

Finish the left over warps from previous classes and projects:

✔AD's white warp

✔white and orange warp

✔ turquoise warp

Reacquaint myself with some rigid heddle weaving techniques: patterns and textures using pickup sticks and using two heddles.

✔ 1/2 twill using two heddles

✔exploring some patterns and textures

✔3. Figure out how the backstrap looms work
Someone gave me three backstrap looms that she found at a thrift store for almost nothing. I've been saving them to play with during this residency.

4. CD and hula hoop weaving
I was planning to base a proposal for a large artwork commission around some circular weaving using cds and hula hoops to create woven mandalas, but in the end I decided to go in another direction. I did do some weaving on CDs though and I'm hoping they will be the start of a large collection of circular weaving.

5. Create a series of three community banners
I had originally planned to use my rigid heddle looms to create the banners, but when I learned that there was a big floor loom at Leigh Square, I decided to use it instead. I wasn't able to convince many people to try weaving on it though, most people who came by just wanted to watch me weaving. I don't usually get that reaction with the rigid heddle looms. Perhaps the big floor loom was to intimidating. We only finished one banner, and it ended up that I did most of the weaving on it myself.

✔6. Make patterns for handwoven garments that I've designed:
I've made quite a few garments from handwoven clothing over the years. I don't usually make patterns. I just take the pieces of fabric and drape and fold them on my body or on a mannequin until I'm pleased with the layout. I don't yet have a plan for these patterns, but it's nice to have them. Who knows what opportunities might come up in the future.

✔7. Warp looms for classes and events that come up during the residency
It was great to have a large space to spread out and do some "direct warping". This a nice, quick and simple way to warp a rigid heddle loom. It is a bit limited though and I don't think I'd want to tackle a very long or complicated warp this way.

✔8. Make samples for mini workshops
As part of the residency I offered a series of three community workshops. I spent some time the week  before each workshop making samples.

✔9. Connect with people in the PoCo area.
This is the thing that did not go at all the way that I had planned. I had thought there there would be more people coming though the centre and that I would build a "following" of people in the PoCo area and start teaching regular classes there. That did not happen. I maybe got one or two visitors a week. Most of them were idly curious and not specifically interested in weaving. I did have a lovely chat with one fellow who came in to tell me about how he enjoyed my exhibit. He told me about a dream he had about following the old trade routes along the coast and seeing Salish weavings made of goat hair. I thought he had seen my Salish style weavings, but I had taken them down to take to another event. It was one of those odd coincidences.

 In the end, I did not build a following in PoCo, but I did make some excellent and very useful connections.

On the first day of my residency, I met one of the previous resident artists who told me that she was opening a gallery with workshop space RIGHT IN MY OWN NEIGHBOURHOOD. I've begun selling things and teaching workshops at the shop which is walking distance from my home. The funny thing is that the things that have been popular at the shop aren't even weaving related. It's all about art journalling.

I joined the Coquitlam Weavers and Spinners Guild mainly because I thought that if I was doing a weaving based residency in the neighbouring community, I should get to know some of the local weavers. As a result of this connection, I've started to teach art and weaving though Place des Arts in Coquitlam, and through Langara College in Vancouver (associated with the Greater Vancouver Weavers and Spinners Guild).

Before I started the residency, I would never have anticipated the chain of events that led to either of these connections.While, I didn't form the type of connections that I had expected, I would say that the connections that I did make have far exceeded my expectations.

Things that got added to the list

 ✔10. Work on samples and prototypes using the Salish loom
I had thought I'd spend most of my time working with my rigid heddle looms, but I hadn't anticipated that I would become intrigued with the Salish loom. I came across a Salish weaving in the little community museum that was in the building where I was based and one of the people working in the museum told me about the meaning of symbols in the weaving. The "red fish in the river" represents Coquitlam and abundance and the stylized geese stand for community and friendship.

 I was already involved with a weaving project at the Dunbar Community Centre in Vancouver with the Vancouver Art Colloquium Society (VACS) using Salish looms. I decided to do some tapestries on this style of loom that told my own stories. I even did my own "red fish in the river" weaving. This is another project that is providing unexpected opportunities. I started out as a participant in the (VACS), but the group was interested using strips of scrap fabric to weave like I did for the red fish weaving, so I was asked to become a mentor for the group which has now become the "Sustainable Weaving:" project.. We are looking at opportunities to expand the program to communities outside the city of Vancouver.

Overall, I am very pleased with the opportunities that have come my way as a result of this residency. I also felt that it was a productive way to get a lot of work done. I will be doing another, shorter, residency this November at the Anvil Centre in New Westminster. I'll be using my time there to design and sew wearable art garments with my handwoven fabric - including some of the weaving I did at Leigh Square.