Prairie Interlace: Weaving, Modernisms, and the Expanded Frame, 1960-2000

Prairie Interlace illuminates the rich history of textile artwork on the Canadian Prairies with in-depth research and over one hundred and fifty beautiful, full-colour photographs.

Innovative textile-based artwork exploded across the Canadian Prairies in the second half of the twentieth century. Melding craft traditions with modern and modernist movements in art and theory, a diverse body of creators opened a beautiful new chapter in textile art.

Prairie Interlace brings together some of the most important scholars of art and craft in Canada to examine the work of forty-eight artists working with textiles from the 1960s to 2000. Recapturing and recording lost histories, this book explores both artists working with textiles and centres of textile study and production, paying special attention to the contexts in which artworks were produced. Indigenous scholars, experts in textile techniques, and experts in Prairie textile history provide fascinating insight into an artistic movement which, until now, has been largely overlooked.

Featuring more than 180 beautiful full-colour images of textile works, many of which have never before been photographed for print, Prairie Interlace provides an opportunity to discover a fascinating movement which has not received the attention it deserves and invites further investigation of this rich period in Canadian art history.

Developed from the travelling exhibition of the same name, Prairie Interlace is a collaboration between Nickle Galleries, University of Calgary in Calgary, AB and the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, SK.

With Contributions By: Alison Calder, Sherry Farrell-Racette, Michele Hardy, Mackenzie Kelly-Frère, Julia Krueger, Mary Beth Laviolette, Timothy Long, Mireille Perron, Jennifer Salahub, Susan Surette, and Cheryl Troupe

Prairie Interlace is also available in French

Michele Hardy is an academic curator with Nickle Galleries and an adjunct member of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Calgary. She is the author of numerous book chapters, articles, and exhibition catalogues and has curated more than three dozen exhibitions with a particular emphasis on Alberta craft and textiles.
Timothy Long has thirty years curatorial experience with the MacKenzie Art Gallery, where he is head curator. His past projects have traced developments in Saskatchewan art since the 1960s and explored interdisciplinary dialogues involving art, sound, ceramics, film, and contemporary dance.
Julia Krueger an independent curator, craft historian, and permanent collection registrar with SK Arts. She maintains an active teaching, writing, curatorial, and research practice grounded in material culture and craft theory with a focus on the Canadian Prairie.

Minister’s Message
Acknowledgements
Exhibition Itinerary

1. Introduction to Prairie Interlace: Recovering “Lost Modernisms”
Julia Krueger, Michele Hardy, Timothy Long

Section 1: Recovering Histories

2. Stand Back-Nothing to See-Move Along
Jennifer E. Salahub

3. Marginalized Moderns: Co-operatives and Indigenous Textile Arts in Saskatchewan, 1960-1972
Sherry Farrell Racette

4. Métis Stories and Women’s Artistic Labour in Margaret Pelletier Harrison’s Margaret’s Rug
Cheryl Troupe

5. The Gift of Time, The Gift of Freedom: Weaving and Fibre Art at the Banff Centre
Mary-Beth Laviolette

6. Living and Liveable Space: Prairie Textiles and Architecture
Susan Surette

Section 2. Contextual Encounters

7. Curating Prairie Interlace: Encounters, Longing, and Challenges
Julia Krueger and Michele Hardy

8. Weaving at the Horizon: Encounters with Fibre Art on the Canadian Prairie
Mackenzie Kelly-Frère

9. Contextual Bodies: From the Cradle to the Barricade
Mireille Perron

10. Six Ways of Looking at Prairie Interlace
Alison Calder

Section 3: Expanding the Frame

11. Weaving in an Expanded Frame
Timothy Long

List of Works
Contributors