Artist Heather Shillinglaw, whose family is from the LeGoff Indian Reserve, honours the language of her nohkums and kookums (grandmothers) and weaves oral teachings inspired by the natural world. Shillinglaw incorporates the work of historians, scholars, and elders in her artwork, effectively turning it into cultural sharing, and rediscovering her roots to the land by using the philosophy and languages of her ancestors. Blending concepts of body, mind and spirit that become woven messages through her practice, Shillinglaw’s art evolves in her storytelling and re-telling of familial oral histories. Shillinglaw references aerial photographs of the landscapes depicted and recontoured in this exhibition taking a bird’s eye view: these are places of significance to Shillinglaw’s family history she assembles to “encourage us to remember, remember, remember.”

There was a reception with the artist in attendance on June 3, from 5pm to 7pm.

Read an Alberta Foundation for the Arts article featuring the exhibition.

 (re)Form is a solo exhibition of works by Carissa Baktay on display at the Alberta Craft Council’s Discovery Gallery in Edmonton from March 19-April 30, 2022.  

The exhibition unfolds over thresholds both physical and imaginary. Baktay’s process-based practice is deeply connected to material and memory in an attempt to understand memories of land (place) and home (body). By collecting, repurposing and transforming materials, she transforms their presence in space and presents a new poetic material understanding that shares the borders between art, craft and design. 

Baktay is a multi-media sculptor, sharing her time between Iceland and Alberta. As an experienced glass maker she has earned degrees from Alberta University of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design and Universidade de Nova Lisboa. She uses experimental technologies and mediums combined with time honoured methods to make her work. 

Join us at the Edmonton Discovery Gallery for Tissues, an exhibition of work from emerging artist, and recent graduate of the AUArts Fibre program, Adriane Vant Erve. Featuring an installation of mysterious, diaphanous sculptural works in silk organza, Tissues explores the delicate fragility of our human physiology. These luminous translucent objects softly glow and sway in the space surrounding them, gently activating the gallery environment.

Join us for a celebration of the creative career of local metalsmith and teacher Karen Cantine. Cantine has been an active member of Alberta’s metalcrafts scene for more than 50 years, and a member of the Alberta Craft Council since its inception in the early 1980s. A Metalsmith at 80 provides viewers a glimpse into Karen Cantine’s journey in her vocation over seven decades. Looking back to Cantine’s past work, forward to future possibilities, and at her current exploration with larger scale sculptural objects, the exhibition highlights the creative themes that have guided her work throughout her career.

Celebrating the creativity, innovation and skill of emerging, Canadian craft artists. Coming Up Next is an exhibition of works selected from a diverse variety of approaches, mediums, and regions. With recent graduates from post-secondary programs, and artists that have practiced and studied their craft through mentorship, Coming Up Next is an exciting collection of works in Wood, Ceramics, Glass, Fibre, and Metal, made by artists form Nova Scotia, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

Participating artists: Adriane Vant Erve, Chen Si, Dalayce Smith, Daniel Labutes, Esther Imm, Gillian Tolliver, Graham Boyd, Jared Last, Leia Guo, Luke Winterhalt, Marcy Friesen, Meng Qiu, Sophia Lengle, Lael Chmelyk.

Jewellery is one of humankinds earliest known expressions of creative endeavour beyond mere survival. How does the ready availability of DIY jewellery kits, and other such products that create widespread accessibility to jewellery making, affect the artists who participate in and advocate for the handmade economy as skilled and trained makers?   

 What happens to the independent maker; to craft and the status of the handmade when a niche skill set such as jewellery making is subject to the generalization and globalisation of the marketplace? Alternately what happens to notions of jewellery when they can be influenced by a surplus of generic materials and processes beyond the traditional ones?  

 This exhibition is a compelling cross-section of interdisciplinary art jewellery practices in the region. These artists each navigate and activate different intersections between artist, educator, entrepreneur, studio jeweller, academic and parent amongst other roles and influences.   

Curated by Kari Woo 

Participating artists:  Sarah Alford, Devon Clark, Jamie Kroeger, Louise Perrone, Lyndsay Rice, and Kari Woo.   

An exhibition of ceramics and drawings by lifelong friends Erin Berry (Toronto, ON) and Chris Savage (Calgary, AB) depicting narratives built through a hybridizing of the old and the new. Incorporating popular cultural aesthetics with classical designs, the drawings and ceramics reflect upon the persistence and convergence of mythology and conspiracy theories in a playful manner.

Curated by Shiemara Hogarth.

Audre Lorde once said that “if I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.”

Eva Birhanu and Simone Elizabeth Saunders define for themselves, in this body of work, permanent manifestations through sculptural and textile practices that reckon with the necessary conversations surrounding race, gender, roots and identity.

Curated by Natalie Gerber (Calgary, AB)

An exploration of contemporary surface and textile design, furthering the dialogue around process and making while finding a place for fibre art in the conversation.

Participating Artists: Charis Birchall, Jolie Bird, Natalie Gerber, Bill Morton, Irene Rasetti.

The framework of Rural Roots is an expression of both the creative connectivity and individual autonomy of a group of five women makers. Connie Pike, Katrina Chaytor, Jessica Danbrook, Katriona Drijber, and Brenda Danbrook are emerging, and established artists formally introduced through programs at the University of Alberta, Red Deer College and the Alberta University of the Arts, in Alberta. The artists in this exhibition engage in traditional craft practices, share a powerful connection to clay, and acknowledge and celebrate the collegiality and mentorship between them.

Participating Artists: Brenda Danbrook, Katrina Chaytor, Connie Pike, Katriona Drijber, Jessica Danbrook.

A solo exhibition of works by Sharon Rose Kootenay exploring the relationship between traditional spiritual beliefs and environmental concerns.

Conceived as a visual narrative and social commentary, Kootenay’s Manitohkewin series explores the artist’s relationship between cultural practices, spiritual beliefs and global concerns.

Through a testament of visual art, Manitohkewin brings an increased awareness of contemporary Indigenous Fine Craft, as well as a glimpse into the identity of the Indigenous Northern Plains.

Bridget Fairbank makes pottery, installation art, and orchestrates happenings - all of which aim for the re-imagining of everyday actions and relations. Her items act sometimes as objects of irony, sometimes as objects of intimacy and sometimes as a means to an educational end. In this case the exhibition Ceramic Botanica: A Constant and Misguided Optimism does all three. The handcrafted object is now the subversive object.