ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Comfort Zones: textiles in the Canadian landscape presents a wide-ranging collection of textile icons of Canadian identity. As one of three exhibitions that form the series100% Natural, the textiles in this exhibition have been created so their makers could better adapt to and identify with the Canadian environment: the weather, politics, spirituality, economies, regional, personal and collective identities, and the landscape itself.
The work of six Canadian artists is exhibited alongside unique Canadian historic textiles, including 19th-century hooked mats decorated with Canadian winter scenes and welcoming phrases; an Amish quilt; hand-spun and woven wool blankets from Quebec and Ontario; a series of patriotic “souvenir pillows” that depict beavers, Mounties, prairie farmers and maple leaves; a Métis ceinture fléchée woven sash, and; a white and red finely knit bedspread inscribed with the Lord’s prayer.
The remarkably interlinked works by Dorothy Caldwell, Emily Carr, David Hannan, Albert Lohnes, Lyla Rye and Joyce Wieland, along with the great many anonymously created objects in the exhibition, are rich legacies that shape this country’s cultural landscape.
