Warps, Heddles, Shuttles and Sheds: The Art and History of Weaving at Mount Allison University

Jane Tisdale

Warps, Heddles, Shuttles and Sheds: The Art and History of Weaving at Mount Allison University

Sackville, Canada: The Owens Art Gallery, 2021

110 pp., 25 x 18 x 1.5, softcover with slipcase

Edition size unknown

I'm not as immediately enamoured of all things textile as my fellow Sackvillians are, but I was pretty quickly won over by the inventiveness and charm of the works in Warps, Heddles, Shuttles and Sheds, which concludes this Sunday, October 10th. 

Curated by Jane Tisdale, Fine Arts Conservator at the Owens Art Gallery, the show features a diverse array of innovative woven work, including sculpture, scarves, blankets, pillows, rugs, chairs, clothing, jewelry and tapestries. It includes work by Pam Black, Joyce Chown, Beth Mann Couillard, Dorothy May Fraser, Patricia Pollett McClelland, Carolyn Manzer McMullen, Greta Ogden, Joanne Bessonette Peill, Doreen Allison Tuomola, and many others. Several of the works were created while they were students at the school. 

Beautifully designed by Lauren Wickware, the accompanying exhibition catalogue features a forward by Director Emily Falvey and essays (in both French and English) by Tisdale and Peter J. Larocque, the Art Curator at the New Brunswick Museum.

Falvey writes "These artists, most of whom were women, developed unique styles, experimented with techniques, materials, forms, and colours, and made important contributions to the professionalization of weaving and craftwork in Canada through teaching, exhibiting, participating in national craft and arts organizations, mentoring, and sharing knowledge with peers."

Larocque's text Hand Weaving in New Brunswick to 1960 charts a history of weaving that includes 

the splint basketry of the Wolastoqey, Mi’kmaq, and Peskotomuhkati cultures, teachings in Acadian convent schools, and used therapeutically as rehabilitation for soldiers blinded in the war and tuberculosis patients. 

The year of 1960 is pivotal to Tisdale's account, also. The Art and History of Weaving at Mount Allison University begins almost a century ago, in 1932, when University President George Trueman and Head of the Art Department Elizabeth McLeod placed a new emphasis on weaving at the school. One can almost see the dollar signs in their eyes as they encouraged students and community members to "take our wool, dye, card, spin, weave it, and develop a tweed which might do as much for the Province as the Harris tweeds have done for Northern Scotland." 

To facilitate this ambitious plan, three large Scandinavian looms were ordered from Norway, and delivered to Sackville [see below]. When they arrived no one was able to assemble them. A Danish man visiting neighbourng Nova Scotia was summoned to campus to install the looms and to provide initial instruction.

Students used the looms for class during the day and women from the community accessed them by paying a monthly fee to the Mount A Handicraft Guild, which organized exhibitions and sold buttons, scarves, neckties, bags, curtains and hand-blocked Christmas cards "at reasonable prices". 

McLeod's replacement, Stanley Royle, who was Head of the Art Department from 1935 to 1945, remained dedicated to textile work, believing that weaving was as important as painting to the art curriculum. But by 1960, the Applied Arts program was cancelled and weaving no longer taught at the school. Famed painter Alex Colville - a professor at Mount Allison at the time - called the decision a “ghastly mistake". 

However, former students continued to develop and expand their weaving practices, and to share their knowledge with others. The works in the exhibition mostly pick up where the histories conclude, with the majority dating from between 1961 and 2012. A notable exception is Joyce Chown's Research binder with dye samples, from the mid-fifties [see below, bottom]. 

Participating artist Patricia Pollett McClelland (former NSCAD professor and current member of the 

Rug Hooking Guild of Nova Scotia) observes that she and her fellow students "drew inspiration from traditional techniques without being bound by them."

Warps, Heddles, Shuttles and Sheds: The Art and History of Weaving at Mount Allison University is available from the Owens Art Gallery, here. 

1. A collaboration between the Owens and Struts Gallery, A Handmade Assembly was a community event that brought together "artists, curators, and others from the region and beyond to lead discussions, facilitate workshops, initiate projects, open exhibitions, and share in a common thread—the handmade." The popular event ran for a decade until the pandemic forced a re-think. A coffee-table book that will function as a history, but also the tenth and final iteration of the event, is currently in production and will be released next year. Visit www.handmadeassembly.com for more information.