As part of this month’s Textile Museum of Canada Digital Residency, we’re profiling a number of artists and professionals associated with the museum and wider community. See all of the profiles here.
What’s your connection to the Textile Museum?
My late partner, Melissa Levin, was a gifted art teacher and visual artist whose first (artistic) love was textiles. The museum was her favourite gallery in the city and was always on her must-see list for visitors. When Melissa passed away October 27, 2015, I decided it would be fitting to establish a fund for donations in her memory and in honour of her passionate work with youth and emerging artists.
What do you do in your industry?
I am a visual artist and professor in the department of visual art and art history at York University. My practice examines the representation of women in popular culture, and often relies on the recovery and manipulation of existing images and texts. Recent works include a video tribute to the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, and a trilogy of interactive installations about women spies in World War II.
In your opinion, how can textiles tell stories?
Melissa would have written pages about this! She taught me so much about textiles. For instance, how African Americans used quilts to signal safe houses on the Underground Railroad. And as a feminist, she was deeply interested in the histories of women’s work and the role of crafts in everyday life. And she harnessed a range of textile techniques and crafting in her own practice. Plus, she was an incorrigible thrifter who could never pass up vintage textiles – from quilts to aprons to souvenir scarves to silk stockings – to use in her artwork. They also had a kind of magical quality she wanted to rescue simply because she loved them.
What’s your favourite place in Toronto to do some creative thinking?
My home studio and walking in High Park.
One of the Textile Museum’s current exhibitions features the works of Itchiku Kubota, whose artistic career focused intensely on the kimono. What do you think we can learn from this kind of creative dedication?
I really appreciate that this examines a non-Western artist’s practice.
So much of our attention is drawn to the digital and virtual possibilities of art. Can you explain what role textiles play in your day-to-day life?
Our home is filled with curtains and quilts Melissa made from vintage fabric. For me, they hold the memory of our life together and her love of textiles.
Name one artist of any discipline and any era who never ceases to inspire you.
I just saw Danh Vo’s exhibition, Take My Breath Away, at the Guggenheim in New York – a poetic mediation and meditation by a Vietnamese-born, gay artist. His brilliant work combines found sculptures, domestic objects, photography, textiles and historical documents to examine important political and social ideologies without banging the viewer over the head. He also reconstructed the entire Statue of Liberty, which he exhibits in fragments. They are beautiful in their abstraction, yet uncannily familiar.
Visit the NOW Digital Residency: Textile Museum of Canada
