A seamstress by trade and passionate textile arts educator, Cat has spent much of her life doing all kinds of sewing, embroidery and beadwork. Over the last three years she has fallen deep into bobbinlace making and spends much of her free time researching regional traditions, learning online with teachers from all over the world, as well as creating her own designs.

While she has spent countless hours dreaming, sampling, and learning how to take her art to a large scale, this is the first time she has ever applied for a public art project, and is very excited to have been shortlisted.

Cat’s art will consist of many unique giant lace squares spread out over different areas. These pieces will represent individuals coming together; showing the benefits of trusting and relying on each other, as well as how it helps strengthen our individual health and the goals of the community. It will prove that diversity makes the big picture more fascinatingly vibrant; and like a treasure hunt, it pulls you away from your usual path to explore a familiar place from new perspectives.

Examples of Cat’s textile art

My artistic practice has been one of material curiousity. It began with clay, working as a studio potter. In the early 1990’s I started what continues to be my signature series, fish sculptures made from recycled tin cans. I also use printmaking as a way to explore and simplify imagery in two dimension, often carrying that through to my sculptural practice. 10 years ago I started working with lost wax cast bronze, and this in turn has let me down a path in plastics, both new and recycled. As I criss cross materials and techniques, there has been a reoccuring theme that connects to my shoreline, and the creatures I find there. Our connection to the natural world is critical, and our awareness of the value of connections is what makes a successful community. For the R.G. “Bun” Vesley Community Centre I am proposing to work with a new and colourful felt material that is designed specifically for it’s sound absorbtion properties. Another departure in materials for me, and an exciting new pallate of colours. It is my intent to create a low relief sculptural work that is not only a reflection of the rivers that run through Carleton County, but which can also act to soften the audio levels within the Centre. Using the simplicity of my print imagery combined with my sculptural practice, I am working towards an installation piece that will weave it’s way through the building’s space, just as the community flows through this incredible facility.

Examples of Alanna’s art

Karen LeBlanc has been weaving for over 50 years. She focuses on weaving traditional, functional, and practical pieces on four or eight-harness looms; weaving innovative, contemporary tapestry pieces woven on tapestry looms; and stitches repurposed tartan kilts or other fabrics into ornaments.

Karen has installed three public art commissions:

“Primary Colours in the Hub” in the Pictou Culture Hub (2024), “Suspended in Time: Woven Pages and Wooden Letters” in the Hanwell Park Academy (2023) and “Primary Colours Weave the Future in the Arc-en-ciel school (2021)

Karen’s “Plots of Land” submission in the 2024 HGA Convergence Yardage exhibition won the Weavers Guild of Oklahoma Award and the Ruth F. Morrison Award for Technical Excellence in Weaving award.

Karen has exhibited internationally, nationally, regionally, and locally and participated in residencies in Fredericton, Toronto and Parrsboro. In 2024, she created a “Branch Out and Weave for Climate Change” workshop for her Harm to Harmony Residency through the Conservation Council of NB.  In 2019, four woven wearables were part of the ArtWear fashion show and exhibition in Fort Collins CO.

Karen teaches the Intro to Weaving course through the Honeybee Folk School. During a summer residency in 2021, Karen created small symbolic hearts that were given to people in memory of Indigenous children who did not return home from a Residential School. Prior to retiring from her full-time job in 2019, Karen worked with the Joint Economic Development Initiative (JEDI) as the Senior Project Manager where she obtained funding and managed workforce and economic development projects for Indigenous people in New Brunswick. Karen continues to advocate for Reconciliation with First Nations.

Examples of Karen’s textile art