Kim Vose Jones has worked in the arts for over 20 years. She took over the Yellow Box Gallery at St. Thomas University two years ago and she has been wanting to work on “The Art of Labour” exhibit ever since.
“The Art of Labour” is curated by Jones and features different types of labour intensive textile art.
“I’ve always been interested in presenting a show dedicated to textile art, and this one in particular is dedicated to textile art that is incredibly labour intensive,” said Jones.
Since Jones started with the gallery, she’s been rearranging the idea for this exhibit in her head and thinking about what artist to select.
The gallery features work from seven different artists.
“Each one of them is very unique in its conceptual approach … so I’m very excited and actually honoured to be presenting these artists.”
Tara Francis, a master quill maker from Elsipogtog First Nations, created a piece called “Residential School.” It’s a small replica of a residential school made out of pieces of broken quills and dyed objects.
This is the first time the piece has been shown.
Julie Gray is an artist from Maine who recreated her grandmother’s cookbooks in needlepoint.
“They’re stunning. Julie, as an homage to [her grandmother], has created these beautiful, labour intensive cookbooks. Right down to where the stains and fading are.”
Three cookbooks are on display in the gallery.
“By taking these objects that we see every day … and just switching it’s materiality, it changes the conversation. We are impressed by a cookbook made out of needle point because of the labour and intensity that goes into it.”
Carol Collicutt is a visual artist from Fredericton. She has taken the pattern and pearls from her grandmother’s wedding dress and created a cloth-like material out of animal gut.
“It’s beautiful, it’s luminescent, it looks like an aged wedding dress. And you look at that and you can imagine the cultural and the metaphoric associations with a wedding dress made of gut.”
It takes years of mastery to be able to create a cloth out of this material. Jones asked Collicutt to show this dress at this exhibit, she said it hasn’t been shown in years.
Works are on display by other artists including Janice Cheney, Allison Green, Danielle Hogan and Jackie Bourque.
The exhibit opened on Sept. 15 and runs until Nov. 30. Jones hopes that people take the time to go see it.
“I think it’s a very special exhibit, with a very talented group of artists.”
