Ode to Tapestry

We're on the last few inches of the public section of the international tapestry project, Fate, Destiny and Self-Determination/le sort, le destin et l'auto-determination. This week a number of people put in time to bring this section of the tapestry installation to completion (weaving-wise). After her visit on this day, Bambi Rutledge wrote me and said:

         Thank you for today’s visit and work and opportunity to see other weavers’ work! I liked the large Navaho-looking tapestry located towards the back of the main room -  so crisp and clean!* And I liked the small English post-card weaving of seaside shelters**. I love feeling the yarns and thinking about the process from critter to product and how ancient it all is!         I appreciated the tasty treats too ….It was odd somehow hearing the discussion about Out of the Cold…I know Sr Susan Moran, OLM, who started the program with the students at St Michael’s College School and she is still a go-getter. She works with refugees now and also with organizing housing for individuals (mostly women more recently) with mental health issues near Yonge and St Joseph Streets, closed to where I work. She received the Order of Canada a little while ago. (* This referred to Debbie Harris' Navajo rug she has been working on for awhile. Debbie is shown below on the right. ** here Bambi is referring to Christine Shipley's small tapestry series.)

Francois Seguin and Debbie Harris 

This tapestry project is playing out for me like a symphony. A symphony requires an orchestra. An orchestra, musicians. Each musician plays their part, without which, the symphony could not exist. Each person is playing the threads of this silent music. Together our creating of this tapestry is a beautiful and harmonious melody. Though the playing of an instrument is solitary, as often the weaving process is, everyone is playing their threads to create a rousing and vigourous arrangement, a celebratory ode to tapestry. This is fairly remarkable in a world that seems to praise and reward egotism and narcissism.

Jutta Polomski and Agota Dolinay

To see the shapes that have arrived to date go to the Facebook page for Line Dufour and on my home page click on the Fate Destiny and Self Determination page.

Kate Kitchen and Francois Seguin were the last two people to be weaving on the tapestry and brought this part of it to completion. The video link is attached below. 

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/ivt8zg44t35kbut/20131127_163626.mp4?n=109496342

Carla Duncan tied off the warp and cut off the tapestry. Now we are ready to do the finishing work on it. Any volunteers? Lunch is on me if you let me know when you can join me.

Back to the Community Threads tapestries, also funded by the Ontario Arts Council - Linda Needles wrote to tell me that the weaving of the last two panels on the gobelin loom is now complete:

from left to right: Lynda Mitchell Reynolds- executive director of the South Simcoe Arts Council, Valerie Splaine, Linda Needles, Sandi Nemenyi, Corrie Parsons and not sure who the last person is. 

As you may know, these tapestries were woven in Alliston Ontario, the hometown of Frederick Banting, one of the inventors of insulin. You can visit the Banting Homestead when you are in the area. In his spare time, Banting painted and recently one of his canvases, French River,  went up for sale. To read more about the story go to  http://www.thestar.com/life/2013/11/22/rare_frederick_banting_painting_for_sale_in_toronto.html