Slow Cloth

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Art Gallery of Burlington - Perry Gallery

Sept. 24 - Oct. 24

Tuesday - Friday: Noon to 5 p.m.

Saturday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

ARTISTS:

Melanie Bailey Cox, Fran Boisvert, Elizabeth Bryan, Jennifer Earle, Marilyn Fish, Chris Hitchcock, Corinne Kossen, Victoria Lynch, Jennifer Neve, Gisela Risse, Karla Rivera, Veronica Scherrer- Pangka, Sue Stasiuk, Margaret Jane Wallace, Diane Woods, Lois Wyndham.

CURATOR: Burlington Handweavers and Spinners.

“How long did it take you to make this?” is the most common question weavers hear. The short answer is, “as long as a piece of string.”

Slow Cloth is an exhibition that attempts to provide a better answer to that question by illustrating the process of and telling the story of what goes into making handwoven scarves. A team of sixteen artists ranging from weavers with many years of experience to those just starting out were challenged to design and weave a scarf drawing from the colour inspiration from one of a set of five images.

While creating their scarves, the weavers kept careful track of the amount of time taken for each step of the process. Steps include calculating and planning the design of the scarf, preparing the threads by spinning, dyeing, and winding them in order. Then the vertical threads are put onto the loom and prepared for weaving (warping), the weaver throws the horizontal threads (weaving), and finally washing and finishing as desired. Each artist has a different process and allocates their time to the different steps according to their own preferences and skills, yielding a different blend for each scarf. After logging each stage and step, the long answer to the popular question, “how long” was answered. Results vary due to the individual design choices by each artist but on average it takes, an astonishing, 41.5 hours to weave a single handwoven scarf.

Image Credit: Margaret Jane Wallace, Butterfly Wing, Hand woven silk textile, 14 x 78.5”, 2020

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• Art Gallery of Burlington agb.life

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Art Gallery of Burlington

The Art Gallery of Burlington is Burlington’s public art gallery and community centre. We are a place of intersection where creators, cultures and communities meet and share in the wealth of human creativity.

The Art Gallery of Burlington aspires to free minds and feed spirits by supporting, sharing, and influencing the visual culture of our times.

We are a team of thirty employees who work with almost five hundred volunteers in service to our communities, to visual culture, and to future generations.