Subtitled: fibre revolution: Tapestry Before During, Now & Next, this issue is built around a 1973-74 Art Gallery of Ontario extensions programme exhibition called Textiles into 3-D which toured 13 centers around Ontario returning to Toronto in time for the World Craft Council conference and "In Praise of Hands" exhibition held at the Ontario Science Centre in 1975. Textiles into 3-D, was organized by influential curator Helen Marie Duffy who passed away in September of 2008 and this issue is in honour of her. Craft Activist and artist Jean Johnson in consultation with friends and peers she complied a thoughtful portrait of Mrs. Duffy for this issue.

Another recent passing must also be noted. On September 29 this year the Canadian art world lost a major figure of our Textile Arts heritage. French Canadian weaver Micheline Beauchemin, born Longueuil, Quebec October 24, 1929 - died in Quebec City. Having attended the opening of a major retrospective of her work presented along with a 191page catalogue at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in Quebec City I can only think she realized her contribution to the art of weaving and that legacy is secure

Having chosen build an issue on Tapestry and being inspired by the controversial and influential exhibition Textiles into 3-D I have attempted to provide a primer about modern tapestry in my article “Time and Line” which points out two things: Tapestry production has always been ‘trapped” in the political economic realties of its own time and that is always in a state of experimentation and change. It is a completely living art form and Tapestry is an ever evolving story perpetually in need of retelling

Our presentation of Textiles into 3-D is accompanied by the 1973 information contemporary to its presentation. Much has changed since then. 26 artist where are they now is a question for a future issues. In our Profiles category instead of an “Artist Profile” of tapestry weaver and educator Jane Kidd she has contributed an article “Materiality and Tapestry” which is very much with the context of the fibre revolution as represented by the work of the artist in Textiles into 3-D and is reprinted here from the American Tapestry Alliance Newsletter.

Barbara Heller has provided a profile of the Canadian Tapestry Network and we take a look at two Hand Weaving Centres in Canada. Thoma Ewen  presents Moon Rain Centre in the Gatineau Hills outside of Ottawa is involved in facilitating community tapestry weaving projects and having recently returned from England were she participated in the Big Weave project at Maiden Erlegh Community Arts School in Reading. I look at The Valhalla Textile Centre in New Denver, British Columbia is the home/ studio weaving retreat created by Katharine Dickerson founder/director of an artist with 40 years of weaving experience behind her and one of the artists who was in Textiles into 3-D.

“Who Made That” our ongoing look at textile work in Public view presents the work of German born, Peterborough Ontario based tapestry artist Freidel and her Otonabee tapestry which hangs in the Wenjack Theatre at Trent University. This piece was made in 1975 while she was artist in residence at the then new university located on the banks of the Otonabee River in east central Ontario. Freidel passed away a decade ago and for some reason I thought it might be interesting to use facebook as a research tool. It worked read the two part story to find out how.

With these articles our focus on Tapestry weaving comes to an end. Moving on to Finishing School, J Penney Burton has gather students coming out of two CEGEP in Montreal and Quebec City where the focus is on technical knowledge to support Entrepreneurial Textile production. Following that we have a series of report from this year’s crop of international conferences, symposiums and exhibitions. Lausanne to Beijing by Carol Westfall weaver from Jersey City, Us. Monique Beauregard  director of Centre Design & Impression Textile reports on the World Textile Association Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentine. Hilde Arts from Antwerp, Belgium, and Louise Marorey from, Chicago Illinois, US gives their impressions of 2009 European Textile Network's conference in Haslach, Austria

We can only offer two reviews of exhibitions in Canada and one Barbara Heller: The Beauty of Bones by Ruth Jones is a reprint from the American Tapestry Alliance Newsletter. “Committed” a group show VAV Gallery of Concordia University, is review by Alanna Lynch. (We need more people writing review and thinking about Canadian textile and fibre Arts)

To finish this issue we are providing a look at the Textile Centre Haslach in Upper Austria which played host to the 15^th biannual European Textile Network’s Conference which I attend this past July. Ripe with history and on the cusp of setting a new style of textile art and production education it is a hot destination for textile tourism each July when Textile Kultur Haslach has been presenting exhibitions, with symposiums and workshops along with a contemporary weavers market in a local that has had a textile market since 1640. It is a very exciting place.

I would like to thank the Canada Council for the Travel Grant that enabled my attendance at the 2009 European Textile Network Conference at the Textile Centre Haslach.

enjoy

  Joe Lewis, dry point etching by Michael Kelley 1984