Home Economics: 150 years of Canadian Hooked Rugs

Presented in conjunction with the Textile Museum of Canada’s 40th anniversary, Home Economics explores the unique stories and histories that have informed hooked rugs in Canada, the highly recognizable forms of folk art with roots in 19th-century North America. Featuring over 100 hooked rugs from the Museum’s rich archive of international material culture, the exhibition represents generations of artisanal entrepreneurship, women’s domestic and collective work, as well as rural development in Canada.

The exhibition will highlight examples from each region, focusing on the unique stories of rug hooking traditions over two centuries. Among the significant pieces featured in Home Economics are rugs by Emily Carr that were produced alongside her renowned paintings, an array of Grenfell mats hooked in Newfoundland and Labrador beginning in 1892 using kits distributed by the Grenfell Mission to generate income, and those designed by artists and hooked by local women for sale to tourists visiting Quebec led by Georges-Édouard Tremblay and Clarence Gagnon. Later rugs include those by the “Gagetown Hookers” – Lydia and Raymond Scott – as well as contemporary pieces by Maritime artists Nancy Edell, Deanne Fitzpatrick, Hannah Epstein and Joanna Close, with Toronto’s Barbara Klunder and Heather Goodchild, and Yvonne Mullock from Calgary.

Whether the result of the imagination of the maker or the use of a prepared pattern, Home Economics celebrates this highly visible part of folk culture in Canada, and explores how craft and commerce have been deeply entwined, producing iconic expressions that speak to individual artistry, skill and creative imagination as well as the broader social and economic landscape. Featuring examples of material reuse and recycling by early Canadian settlers to today’s thriving art practices, Home Economics highlights the same impulses at play over two centuries – craft innovation that embraces aesthetic practice, traditional technique and vernacular design, producing vibrant expressions of creativity as well as regional identity and national cultural heritage.

An opening reception for Home Economics: 150 Years of Canadian Hooked Rugs will take place on Thursday September 24, 2015 from 6:30 – 8 pm at the Textile Museum of Canada.

This exhibition was also shown at Mount St. Vincent University Art Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, September 3-November 6, 2016.

Type: Exhibition

Date: Sep 24, 2015 - Feb 8, 2016

Curated by: Shauna McCabe, Natalia Nekrassova, Sarah Quinton and Roxanne Shaughnessy

Back to What’s On

Grenfell Mission, Newfoundland and Labrador 1935 – 1945 Silk or rayon, cotton, burlap, hooked 33 x 45 cm Gift of Heather Bryan, T00.49.1

Canada, c.1960 Wool, burlap, hooked 83 x 93 cm Textile Museum of Canada, T77.0054

Designed by Clarence Gagnon Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, 1930-1940 Wool, animal hair, burlap, hooked 70 x 99 cm Gift of Heather and Brian Ayer, T03.14.1

Grenfell Mission, Newfoundland and Labrador after 1935 Silk or rayon, burlap, hooked 66 x 100 cm Gift of Agnes Poddsky, T00.30.1

Attributed to Florence Ryder Sioux Handcraft Co-operative Standing Buffalo Reserve, Saskatchewan Wool, cotton, burlap, hooked 43 x 87 cm Gift of Max Allen, T83.0083

Lunenberg County, Nova Scotia early to mid 20th century Wool, cotton, synthetic, burlap, hooked 75 x 90 cm T94.0357

Yvonne Mullock, HIT & MISS (2014), Recycled materials, wool, cotton and burlap, 77 x 282 cm, Collection of the artist

Barbara Klunder, Laura Secord (1989), 221 x 101 cm, Wool and burlap, Collection of the artist. Photo: Maciek Linowski

Deanne Fitzpatrick, School of Fish (c. 1995) 93 x 172 cm, Various materials and burlap, Collection of Ruth Mandel. Photo: Maciek Linowski

Emily Carr

Hannah Epstein, Question of the Day (2014), Animated GIF, Collection of the artist

Nancy Edell, Peter and Nancy as the two-headed Dog (1993), 66 x 93 cm, Various yarns and burlap, Dalhousie Art Gallery permanent collection, gift of the artist, 1999. Photo: Steve Farmer

Heather Goodchild, Journey (2010), 97 x 166 cm, Wool and burlap, Collection of Scott Lauder. Photo by Evan Penny

Joanna Close, The Kitchen (2014), Hand-dyed wool rag and burlap, 78 x 78 cm, Collection of the artist. Photo: Steve Farmer

Home Economics is made possible through the lead support of the William R. and Shirley Beatty Charitable Foundation. The generous contribution of Ruth Mandel – WHO GIVES Fund complemented by the Private Giving Foundation, TD Wealth, supports important community-engaged rug hooking workshops facilitated by ArtBridges in partnership with local agencies. The catalogue that accompanies the exhibition is made possible through the kind support of Carole and Howard Tanenbaum.