Articulation Textile Group

Welcome to December of 2020 from Articulation Textile Group. This year of revisioning has given us much to think about, many things to adjust to, and depending on where you reside it may have even shown you what isolation, shut down, and or quarantine look like. Our world may have turned on its head but silver linings are presenting all around us and in a year that has forced us to slow down we have more time to take them in.  Witnessing Lake Winnipeg's freeze-up this year , for example, has been a revelation. The lake, often referred to as an inland ocean is subject to changes in wind and water levels. As a result, this season, plate glass like shards of ice have accumulated along the shore, some of them hip height and inches thick. At night a careful listen can reveal creaking and grinding or the muffled splash of water lapping under the ice, sometimes even , "Whalesong".  I am typing this blog while quarantining on the shores of Lake Winnipeg at our cottage. The mandat

Articulation Textile Group members are managing the curve balls our current situation continues to throw at us in creative ways. Like everyone else, separated by geography, we are relying on social media and the occasional zoom call to keep in touch. Under normal circumstances, we would have met as a group in person somewhere in Canada to discuss, inspire, share, and create...together. Instead, we are learning patience and flexibility as we reschedule exhibit plans and adapt to the constant that is change. Manitoba is experiencing one of those early snowstorms that turns fall into winter overnight, city streets into skating rinks, and cars into fishtailing projectiles. It's the kind of day that inspires creatives to stay indoors and turn to their preferred media until the craziness subsides. I have spent part of this slippery day putting the final stitches into the last two panels of my perennial re patterning/ reblooming series, "COMPOSITION", soon to exhibit in St

Opportunities for R and R lie under these summer skies over Lake Winnipeg in July of 2020. COVID-19 has brought with it many challenges and love it or loath it technology is playing a greater role in our ability to connect across physical boundaries. Articulation members zoomed into view on my iPhone screen for a mid-June catch up. As with any zoom event connectivity was conditional and prone to the pitfalls of bandwidth, unmuted microphones, and attempted screenshots that disconnected some of us. Basically the limitations most of us have encountered during this most unusual of years as our new normal. Our best bet, I think, is to reframe change and uncertainty by putting those concerns into a new box called opportunity.   During our zoom meeting, we had an opportunity to gather as a group and reflect on some of the new logistical concerns we now face. Wendy and Donna's work in Calgary setting up a show of Articulation's exhibit, "Provinces", at the  Fish

May brings with it many new beginnings. Mothers Day traditionally draws families together but this year many of us had to get creative and embrace various forms of technology to make connections. My immediate family headed out to Manitoba's lake country to see how the cottage had navigated another winter. Some years we are greeted by the first spring bulbs already blooming, on others we have seen ice walls blown in on our beach after a wild winter storm. This year the ice was breaking up yet the unusual sighting of icebergs carrying out the remnants of another long winter continued right through to May long weekend. An iceberg floats by, mid May, on Lake Winnipeg. It was not surprising then that we had no sightings of brave souls literally breaking the ice on their summer routines with their annual first swim of the season. I am a 25+ year veteran of weekday morning swims at the YMCA and though my morning routine has been seriously disrupted by the COVID-19 shutdowns, I wa