Insights Show at the Wellington County Museum and Archives starting this month until end of June.

Exhibition of Fine Art located at The Wellington Country Museum And Archives, 0536 Wellington Rd 18, Fergus, ON N1M 2W3

Permafrost Triptych Artist Statement

My Permafrost Triptych has been accepted into the Insights art exhibition at the Wellington County Museum and Archives. The artists’ reception was on Thursday night April 18th and the show runs until the end of June.

Artist statement

Climate change, causing accelerating melting of the permafrost in the Arctic, is resulting in landslips and the destruction of infrastructure such as buildings, water/sewer and gas pipelines. Food supplies are also endangered, since underground meat caches are no longer cold enough to preserve the season’s catch. Indigenous communities are threatened.

Additional techniques:

Quilt top made directly on the longarm, using flip-and-sew- technique in one long strata. The smallest, middle piece was made as an afterthought from the ends and middle of the strata, which I rescued from the trash basket several times before finally deciding to make the work into a triptych.

Materials:

Mostly commerical cotton quilting fabrics, Hobbs 80/20 batting over a layer of Polyester Felt, sky fabrics hand-dyed on old cottons, ALL fabrics from my stash.

Design / Production Credits:

This was probably inspired by a news article or documentary on the Arctic that I saw on TV. I do not remember which, but after extensive research with the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and the Walrus, three publications that I subscribe to, the researchers found a CBC article about the meat caches that may have been the source of the IDEA. They also had another article with a photo of a tilted house, sinking into the permafrost in Labrador, taken by Darren Calabrese. I drew both of the line drawings I used in the quilts by my own hand,- the meat cache from my imagination and the tilted house referencing a photo by Mr. Calabrese, but by no means a copy of it.

Climate change/Global warming is causing accelerated melting of the permafrost in the Arctic, resulting in landslips and mudslides and the destruction of infrastructure such as buildings, water/sewer and gas pipelines. Buildings are sinking into the permafrost and food supplies are also endangered, since underground meat cellars (caches) are no longer cold enough to preserve the season’s catch from fishing and hunting. Indigenous communities are under threat of imminent food and shelter insecurity.