SHRINE: A Canadian Felt Exhibition

SHRINE is a group exhibition created by felt feutre members from across Canada. The work asks participating artists to create a portable shrine that pays homage to a belief which is intrinsic to them. This belief can be based on religion, but can also be secular, a testament to an object/theme selected by the feltmaker.

The combination of the forks with wool and reclaimed wood in Taste by Connie Michelle Moray references both of gender and ecology. Forks are often found inside the drawers of kitchens, wool used to create clothing and wood used to build a home; in this way these works act as a shrine to overlooked and often undervalued domestic history, such as textile practices and building traditions.

The colour and form of the wool references the organic unseen or unpresentable body made visible, the female body beyond the surface. The felted silver plated forks are shrines of 'taste' associated with class, gender and the body - things that we consider valuable or beautiful as a society, yet the entropic state of the materials complicate these values to show the eco-body as a site of both degenerative and regenerative beauty.

Inspired by the textural world, natural and human made, Complementaries by Chantal Cardinal celebrates the slow movement, the creation of natural crevasses like canyons, the passing of time and the effects on its environment. Using two tone handmade partial felt to define spatial boundaries to contain colours and play with plaster which has a nice somewhat symbiotic relationship with felt.

The inspiration for Marjolaine Arsenault's Open Heart comes from the belief that the body is a vessel housing the soul. We are one with the divine. Our heart is the instrument connecting us between the earth and the sky - the human and the divine. In Open Heart the garment representation is cut open to reveal the heart radiating like a sun. Copper, being a natural conduit of energy, is the perfect material to include with nuno felting and beading.

This shrine, Arboreal Stand by June Jacobs, is composed of three hand-felted wool tree stump forms mounted on three hand-carved wood connected bases. The bases act to elevate the tree stumps to give them a place of honour and enhance the network of roots that anchor the trees and provide the structure of connectivity.

This piece by Lois McDonald-Layden is inspired by the quote Into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul. The connection we are all seeking, is all around us, if we only wander in nature for a bit. The runestones are engraved with symbols of beliefs and religions. We can give these ideas different names, but ultimately, we are all searching for the same thing and it can be found in your forest, or your shrine, wherever that might be. The background and trees are needle and wet felted wool and silk. The stones are engraved and painted polymer clay.

Hold Dear by Diane Goossens, a shrine to the artists aunt, it is also a testament to a rural, life sustaining way of life. A photo of the 80 year old maple tree on the family's farm is transferred to silk and set in a wet felted papal hat, paired with a nuno felted jacket designed with pouches to hold life sustaining seed pods, nuts, and cones as sculptural elements.

Much like trees hold life, the farm holds trees that foster life sustaining ways.

Self-Reverence by Jennifer Tsuchida is a tactile homage to self; a celebration and veneration of who one is at their core. One cannot possibly love and respect others if, at one's core, the love and respect doesn't first come from within. Self-Reverence encourages viewers to delve deep within themselves to find, embrace, and revere their uniqueness.

Hand felted and stuffed using wet and nuno felting techniques with merino fleece.

Transfiguration by Diane Krys is about honouring the act of picking up the pieces and reshaping a new normal, one that can find joy, beauty and hope within traumatic, unexpected circumstances. The five irregular, colourful forms represent this transformation.

Humbles Gestes au Quotidien by Carmen Laferriere honours the beauty and simplicity of day to day actions such as the hand stiching and mending clothes of our grandmothers and mothers used to perform. These actions, so vital for the family's well being often went unnoticed.

Sandra Barrett is a blacksmith and felt maker in Fernie, BC. This shrine has a felt covered steel core with lights between the layers. This sanctuary is her Spiritual Temple.

Saint Marilyn by Christianna Fergusson is a shrine to honour the life of a friend and is a celebration of aging gracefully. Marilyn embraced again, she wintered in India, wrote stories and poetry, drank whiskey with friends, she made things. She had friends of all ages.

The shrine is a physical object to reflect on her memory and the things learned from knowing her. A poem about her was written on mulberry paper and felted into the piece. The patchwork surface design reflects all the stories and experiences stitched together to make a life. Stones were felted into the work to symbolize her love of the natural world. The second medium incorporated was rug hooking. This choice was made to add texture and dimension and to experiment with rug hooking into a fulled piece of felt.

Shrine - a place regarded as holy because of its associations with a divinity or a sacred person or relic, marked by a building or other construction. A place associated with or containing memorabilia of a particular revered person or thing. A casket containing sacred relics, a reliquary. A niche or enclosure containing a religious statue or other object.