2017 Oh! Canada

The Grand National 2017 Oh! Canada May 7 to September 3 Landscapes Heather Grover, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, 2016 Procion MX and acid dyes, fabric inks and paints on fabric and over dyed threads, chenille fbres yarns and doilies. Chenilled, raw edge appliquéd, needle turned appliquéd, hand and machine quilted, thread painted, wet and machine felted, crazy quilted, hand embroidered and crocheted. 8” x 8”. Inspiration/Credits: Group of Seven, Emily Carr and Robert Bateman. This book is a collection of mini landscapes inspired By my travels across Canada. It is my own version of a souvenir postcard recording what I observed, capturing that moment in time. Welcome to The Grand National QUILT SHOW 2017 For its frst nine years The Grand National Quilt exceptional historic site, and we are indeBted Chair, The Grand National: Show was presented annually; followinG 2011 to the ReGion of Waterloo for makinG this Kathleen Bissett Biennially. It is and has always Been presented partnership possiBle. The Grand National by a volunteer committee in co-operation with With each GN show, quilt artists from Committee: the Joseph Schneider Haus National Historic Susan Burke (Curator) Site. Over the years the show was hosted By across Canada have Been challenGed to Tamara Gilhuly three different venues including Kitchener- interpret a variety of themes. In this special Waterloo Art Gallery and Homer Watson commemorative year, 2017, Oh! Canada is the ElizaBeth King House & Gallery. theme. Canada’s talented artists from coast ElizaBeth Litch to coast suBmitted 111 works of quilt art for Marion Marr Four of the current committee memBers are consideration, from which 55 works were Louise McCaul foundinG memBers and have worked toGether selected forminG the impressive collection Bev MacKinnon on each show. We are thrilled that our fnal you see here. The Committee sincerely Bonnie Murdoch Grand National Exhibition, Oh! Canada, has thanks all the artists who were inspired By our Been BrouGht home to the Joseph Schneider challenGe, particularly those whose work will Haus where it opens on May 7, continuing Grace these Galleries for the four months of throuGh SeptemBer 3, 2017. the show, allowinG the puBlic to celeBrate our Creative Sisters We are honoured to Be presentinG this nation’s 150th birthday with us. prestiGious national show once more, deep in the heart of Waterloo quilt country, at this Kathy Bissett, Chair We are grateful for the generous support of the following sponsors in presenting the 2017 Grand National, Oh! Canada. Janome Canada, Toyota Motor ManufacturinG Canada Inc., Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation, Waterloo County Quilters’ Guild, Northcott, Creative Sisters Quilt Studio and the Friends of the Joseph Schneider Haus. The Grand National 2017 OH! CANADA | 1 Curator’s Statement Wildlife (2006), explored their community’s Mountie of the RCMP - Canada’s Finest Local Colour (2013) and unleashed their - stitched in leather By intrepid quilter, Since 2003, the volunteer imaginations in Fantasy (2007) and Off the Renske Helmuth, serves as a dignifed Committee of the Grand Wall (2010)..... foil for the canine version, the whimsical Monty of the Royal Canadian Mounted National has inspired and So what can we possiBly say after Police by Kit Ormsby who assures us that encouraGed innovation in enjoyinG such a deliGhtful smorGasBord of Monty adores wearinG hats. Representing Canadian quilters across Canadian quilt art over so many years But the country By inviting Oh! Canada. We’re happy to Be cominG Canada’s great Northern Wilderness is the them to create a piece full-circle from Reflections of Canada and awe-inspirinG drama of an aurora Borealis of wall art Based on a particular theme. to Be cominG home to Joseph Schneider imBuinG the land of the Inuit peoples with a The results exhiBited in the twelve Haus National Historic Site to Be celeBrating magical Northern Spirit (HertzBerG). Nanuk, denizen of the polar sea ice - the wise, subsequent exhibitions have Been nothing Canada’s Sesquicentennial. Quilters, then, powerful, much-loved Polar Bear, makes an short of awe-inspirinG; our artists have were invited this year to capture in their art appearance in Mandeloso’s Home is on the suBmitted works that have Been thouGhtfully the very essence of their part of Canada Sea Ice. A Canada Goose, Homeward Bound composed, skilfully desiGned, visually that Gives cause for celeBratinG our Glorious (Pearce), prepares to skid quietly onto a assertive and technically masterful; throuGh nation in 2017. sunset lake. them we have come to know a Canada that So we thank the couraGeous artists who only a quilter or fbre artist could envision. on this auspicious moment-in-time chose Appropriately, in this year when so many Our frst Grand National, Reflections, to commemorate one of the icons of the refuGee families are BeinG welcomed to our captured Canada’s expansive, painterly classic Canadian experience in their work. shores, some quilters have reflected Back landscapes; Constructions (2004) endowed The familiar ones are mostly all here for on their own immiGrant roots. McLean our country with an unforGettaBle sense the celebration: The Maple Leaf centres employs a pair of well-worn First Shoes of place, and Airborne (2005) transported Villett’s colourwash flag in Oh! Canada to relate the story of her Mother’s perilous it Beyond all earthly Bounds, transforming and in Payne’s From the World to Canada. The entry into the world of Lucky Lake and transfguring it, surpassing even the ritual of the maple tree’s sweet sprinGtime Saskatchewan in 1914, a child not expected Committee’s wildest expectations. And so harvest is a nostalGic memory in Grover’s to survive the unforGivinG prairie life chosen it went...as our quilters captured Canada’s quilted Landscapes booklet. A scarlet-clad by her pioneerinG parents. Vanderweit’s 2 | The Grand National 2017 OH! CANADA composition of simple rod-Back kitchen welcome response experienced By many of But the ‘pride of place’ must Go to chairs, Room at the Table evokes the warmth the frst Chinese immigrants to Canada. In Saskatchewan’s Heather Grover for her of a family welcome that newcomers to our startlinG contrast, on the opposite coast, the textile travel journal, entitled simply, country receive Be they refuGees, immiGrants indomitaBle spirit and infectious Generosity Landscapes. This enchantinG little memoir or come-from-aways. “There’s room for of the Newfoundlanders, latecomers to transports the armchair traveller from a all at the Canadian table.” Rice’s aBstract Confederation, are celeBrated By several suGar Bush in the Ottawa Valley, across a textile tribute to Home, depicts perhaps artists both in textile and in text (poetry) prairie snowscape, over a tidy Saskatchewan most dramatically the richness of Canada’s farmstead, alonG a rushinG river in AlBerta to cultural canvas, the distinctive landscapes Since Both the Beauty and the capricious the patchwork foothills of BC and thence to of its vast terrains. UsinG a traditional log nature of our environment defne us as Vancouver. AlonG the way Grover calls upon caBin Block with its hearth-red centre, the Canadians, its no surprise that many quilters a full toolkit of creative techniques to enliven quilt artist marks the inclusive communities responded to this year’s challenGe in a her carefully-curated pallet of fbre, fabric where immiGrants have found a home, quintessentially Canadian way, expressing and fantasy fnishes. Emerging quilt artists separate thouGh interconnected one with stronG connections to ‘place’ in their work could learn much from this fbre art primer. the other. and GivinG the natural landscape top BillinG. The quilt artists of Oh! Canada have, in Of particular note, representinG two of Other quilters have chosen to depict imprints their inimitaBle fashion, contriButed to Canada’s far-flung regions is the breath- left on the land By the various cultural our celeBrations of Canada’s 150 in ways takinGly Beautiful landscape quilt of the St Groups that have shared its Bounty. The that are “clearly Canadian”, yet clearly their Elias region of the Yukon, Braided Channels Agawa pictographs summon forth the fgure own; they and all who have participated in (Oswald) and On Guard for Thee (Garland) of a First Nations chief as he traces imaGes The Grand National over the years, have which freezes a moment in time as the of animals, fgures, canoes - powerful individually and collectively made huGe symBols for his people, painted on nature’s viewer looks out to sea, GazinG alonG the contriButions to the granite canvas....Painted Rocks (Sachro). fence line at the Cape Spear LiGhthouse, the quiltinG Genre, elevating An aBandoned Ukrainian Barn settlinG into most easterly point in North America. Closer the quilt from the bed to the prairie grasslands asks the question “Is to home, Misty Morning on Lower Buckhorn the wall and positioning This Where Baba Milked the Cows?” (Bayda) skilfully replicates in faBric the maGic of that it frmly in the world of The siGn on a store in Victoria’s Chinatown, morninG moment in Ontario cottaGe country. fne art. Come Back Later alludes to the less-than- One can almost hear the loons. Susan Burke, Curator The Grand National 2017 OH! CANADA | 3 My Canada Judy Villett, New Westminster, British Columbia, 2014 Commercially printed cottons and cotton batting. Machine pieced and free motion machine quilted. 67.25” x 40.5”. Created as a happy accident, this Canadian flag is much larger than I intended! Commissioned to create a flag approximately twice as large as the seasonal flag series that I had already done (33” x 22”), I assumed that doubling the number of 2” squares in the original design would double the area. I was amazed as the piece grew to cover my whole 5’ x 8’ design wall! The words I quilted words into the flag can really only be read from the back.

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