let’s go to the people’s place

LET’S GO TO THE PEOPLE’S PLACE is a tapestry commissoned for The People's Place Regional Library in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

I was inspired by six artists who live with intellectual disabilities and partake in creative day programmes offered by L’Arche Antigonish. Their artwork is a true expression of the positive outlook they bring to their own lives and the joy they bring to their families & friends.

As individuals they each enjoy a rich and complete life including employment, creative activity, recreation, friendship, faith and love. As vital members in our community they willingly share their gifts with all of Antigonish and regions beyond.

The collaborative nature of the design is meaningful as a collective expression of creativity that includes all people who live in our community, and as a powerful statement of inclusion, understanding and respect.

Here are the artworks that inspired my tapestry: LET’S GO TO THE PEOPLE’S PLACE

Clockwise, top left & into the centre: Matthew Wright - his family group is out for a walk; Lisa Leuschner - her orange painting became the background image for the tapestry: Cory Pelly - his star-flowers are the design motif for the border; Michael Boddy - I asked him to draw all sorts of birds and butterflies for the tapestry; Tommy Landry - his elegant flowers create a nice rhythm of vertical lines in the tapestry; Mary Anne MacKinnon - her person calls out to Matthew's family "Let's go to the People's Place!"; and her abstract flowers became trees in the park for my design.

LET’S GO TO THE PEOPLE’S PLACE was woven in the new library during the summer and autumn of 2011.

Lisa and Matthew helped me set up the loom and stake out my studio space before all the book shelves and other furniture were set in place.

Lisa, Mary Anne, Matthew and Michael really helped by taking all the awkward skeins of coloured wool and winding them into much more useful balls.

Here I am showing Michael how the cartoon is placed behind the warps ready for tracing. The purple base weaving is one hem of the tapestry.

You can see the colourful decoration on my loom by Shane Greencorn.

The new library welcomed literally thousands of visitors during its first year.

Weaving the tapestry in the library gave me many opportunities to talk about the artistic process, the actual weaving of a tapestry, and to highlight the creative work done by the folks of L'Arche Antigonish.

(Nice as this was it also severely slowed down the production of the tapestry!)

The artists were very proud to have their paintings and drawings included in the overall design. They often came by to check out my progress.

Weaving a tapestry from the back side as well as side-to-side (rather than up-and-down) is a very traditional technique. There is a mirror hanging on the other side of the warp so the weaver can see how the front side is looking.

Here is what the front side of the tapestry looks like if the mirror is lowered.

The tapestry was finally woven by the end of October - I figure it took about 500 hours to weave, not to mention weeks of designing, and a further 50 hours or more of finishing work before the tapestry was installed in the People's Place.

Here I am cutting the tapestry off the loom during a community celebration.

This shows how the original artworks were developed and translated in this tapestry using a traditional vocabulary of tapestry-weaving techniques.

The cartoon was the basis for creative interpretation at the loom.