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To kick off our sixth year I am thrilled that Esker Foundation is presenting the work of Vanessa Brown and Anna Torma. Brilliantly curated by Shauna Thompson, the work of these two artists uniquely complements each other, and although material selections have little in common, what binds them together is a deep connection and commitment to making. Vancouver-based Brown’s work is a delicate dance of fusing steel, pigment, colour, light, and sound. The Witching Hour is at once sculptural and immersive, suggesting that each single element or object contributes to a larger conversation of symbolic interconnection and magic, as curator Shauna Thompson states: “The stage is set; a bewitched scenography poised in the moment before an action.” Book of Abandoned Details presents the exquisitely detailed large-scale hand embroidered wall hangings and collages of Anna Torma. Now based in Baie Verte, New Brunswick, Torma produces work deeply influenced by both historical and contemporary Hungarian textile traditions. Her work is both a nod to traditional methods and to the subversive feminist avant-garde movements of the 1960s and 70s, that saw the stories and symbolism used in hand sewing as a way to critique dominant idealogies and status quo thinking.

In the Project Space we are featuring four Calgary-based artists. We start with Jolie Bird’s project 1597; Harmonious Frequencies, a performance-based installation creating the Fibonacci Sequence, which references the golden ratio found throughout nature. Bird will be performing this work in the space at specific times and dates until July 29. In August through to the end of October we look forward to a collaborative project by Alana Bartol & Mia Rushton and Eric Moschopedis.

Program highlights this summer include talks and workshops with Vanessa Brown, Anna Torma, and Jolie Bird, a tour of the Glenbow Museum's Hungarian textile collection, and a jewelry workshop with Joan Irvin. Dr. Erin Silver, Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory at the University of British Columbia, will be speaking about the connections Brown and Torma’s practice have with early-20th century avant-garde workshops, and back by popular demand, a trip to the Canadian Museum of Making.

As always, check out our website, the Esker App, Facebook (Esker Foundation), Instagram (@EskerFoundation), or Twitter (@EskerFoundation) for more details, behind the scenes commentary, pictures, and the latest news.

Naomi Potter Director/Curator

W E LC O M E

Front Cover: Vanessa Brown, Sun Milk, 2017. Courtesy the artist and Project Pangée, Montréal.

Back cover: Anna Torma, Abandoned Details II, 2018, (detail). Courtesy of the artist.

Anna Torma, Abandoned Details II, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

VANESSA BROWNThe Witching Hour

ANNA TORMABook of Abandoned Details

2 6 M A Y – 2 S E P T E M B E R

Image courtesy of Vanessa Brown.

Vanessa Brown works in the space between strength and fragility through an alchemical fusing of steel, pigment, glass, and textile. Her work is hybrid and multidimensional: sculpture flirting with painting, symbolic narrative collage, a physical gestalt of states of consciousness. The Witching Hour brings together new installations and recent works, ranging in scale from larger-than-life to intimate. It is a proposal in material, colour, light, and sound; an invitation into an emotively charmed circle where magic, fantasy, and humour offer coded strategies to consider material histories, our connection to the natural and supernatural worlds, and gendered systems of labour, communication, and value.

Through a number of interrelated installations, Brown welcomes us into the liminal space between dreaming and consciousness, between the visionary and the here-and-now. Working primarily with steel, her imaginative formal constellations critique and counter the material’s traditional associations with the monumental, masculine, and its use in aggressive industry and military efforts. For Brown, the allure of steel rests in its subtler qualities, such as its malleability, adaptability, and delicateness, attributes that allude to the rich territory of feminized narratives and material associations.

The exhibition leads us through a series of fantastic scenarios: a midnight trip to the jeweller’s piercing parlour; the comforting embrace of the bog; and within the light-filled, nurturing garden shed. The symbology of each scene—through material and form—is a dense and surreal system of storytelling. The entrance into Brown’s speculative reality—through the jeweller’s piercing parlour—greets us with a shop floor arranged with all of the accessories one might need for an otherworldly journey: robes for sleepwalking and daydreaming wait on their hangers for absent bodies; oversized earrings oscillate between the figurative and the abstract. Our state of consciousness is uncertain; an exhausted clock slumbers over our heads. While she is asleep, the rules of time and space have slipped. Against the wall rests a menu of options incised into steel, written in an unfamiliar symbolic language. The act of engraving is reminiscent both of tattooing into skin and also of engraving jewellery; the gesture of committing important information to metal as a method of communicating with and for the future.

Though their scale is large, the forms that these objects assume draw their reference point back to the human body. Practices of communicating coded messages through objects displayed on the body is one that recurs in Brown’s practice. Though the hierarchy of metalworking has historically relegated jewellery to a questionably subordinate realm of artisanal craft because of its bodily use, its metaphorical language, in particular that of

charm bracelets, is historically powerful and often feminized. Typically worn to denote or commemorate personal narratives, milestones, and rites of passage, charms are often given and received as heirlooms, and unlike other valued forms of property—such as land and currencies, which have historically been passed down a patrilinear line—charm bracelets and jewellery tend to be passed intergenerationally through the hands of women.

Moving away from these works, we are drawn toward a chorus of amphibious croaks. Slipping into the dimness of a meditatively droning bog, we encounter the hypnotic movement of clusters of objects. Undulating as if caught in a slow eddy, these elements are suspended in front of us within a romantic, semi-apocalyptic swamp. The aura here is ambiguous, though the invitation to rest and stay awhile is clear. In the gentle flow, we find organic detritus, planetary reflections, and the debris of art history which has been liberated from the museum and sunken with us into the murk. The rotation of the mobiles gestures to a cyclical sense of time, and perhaps, the cycles of life and death. We are brought in close, enveloped by colour and sound: shrouded inside of an internal space, maternal and womblike, but unclearly prenatal or posthumous.

B I O G R A P H Y

Vanessa Brown works in sculpture, painting, and photography. Her primary medium is steel and she attempts to parse its associations with industry, weaponry and brutality, and its subtler qualities such as pliability, versatility, and slightness. The imagery in her work draws from various sources including landscapes, historical crafts, recurring symbols from her own dreams, as well as the work and biographies of other female artists. She is based in Vancouver on unceded Coast Salish Territories. Brown graduated with a BFA from Emily Carr University, Vancouver in 2013 and was the recipient of the Chancellor’s Award. She has exhibited in Canada, Germany, the USA, and Mexico, notably with solo and two-person exhibitions at Wil Aballe Art Projects, Vancouver; Erin Stump Projects, Toronto; and group exhibitions at the Nanaimo Art Gallery; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; and King Street Station, Seattle.

Vanessa Brown would like to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council.

She would also like to acknowledge and thank her studio assistants Joseph Band (metal), and Iman Hassan (textiles/robes), along with Michelle Mackenzie for her sound composition Post Meridiem for Veils of a Bog.

VA N E S SA B R OW N:TH E W I TC H I N G H O U R 26 MAY – 2 SEPTEMBER

Vanessa Brown, Stained Glass Earrings and Stand, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.EXPLORE MORE W ITH THE ESKER APP

As a descendant of generations of skilled needleworkers and embroiderers, Anna Torma produces work that is both rooted in a deep Hungarian textile tradition and is also part of a vibrant contemporary practice connected to radical feminist avant-garde movements of the 1960s and 70s, which reclaimed craft and fibre-based work as urgent and political fine art practices. Through the synthesis of techniques such as embroidery, drawing, collaging, dyeing, free-hand quilting, appliqué, and photo transfer, Torma’s work offers us an extraordinary world in which the domestic and the fantastic collide in lush imagery drawn from familial history, books and literature, real and imagined places, mythology and folklore, flora and fauna, and personal and cultural memory.

Book of Abandoned Details presents major work produced over the past five years, much of which speaks to the complex nature of diasporic identity and experience; the desire to remember and preserve the details of a past, while also adapting to and articulating a new present. Torma describes herself as a storyteller and a “spiritual keeper of memories.”1 The expressive needlework of her textiles communicates stories—fragmented and non-linear—that alternate between the figurative and the abstract. Torma’s needle inscribes the surface of these materials with a language that speaks simultaneously to past and present, and the resulting works act as documents, ledgers, or catalogues of memories—of both grand and important as well as small and intimate things meant to be preserved and remembered. The form of the work often references the nature of memory: sharp and clear at one moment; fragmented and tangled at the next.

The new series of works from which this exhibition takes its name offers a register of words, shapes, and forms—some that we might recognize, others that we might not; some that are marvelous, others that are mundane. For Torma, the small and seemingly unexceptional are equally as important as the large and easily recognizable. In this series of work, as in life, Torma urges us to value and treasure the minute and the everyday, because it is through the accumulation of these minor details that one can often access greater and more important facets of life as well.

The diptych Carpet of Many Hands (2012-18), is a powerful manifestation of Torma’s emphasis on the potential of the small or quotidian to add up to more than the sum of its parts. Comprised of two long, vertical panels, it is a monumental collage of found and collected fabrics and original embroideries. Hundreds of textile pieces sit next to and on top of one another—printed fabrics, crochet and lace samples, embellished swatches, and needlepoint sourced from domestic linens such as curtains, sheets, tablecloths, and protective Hungarian falvédö (a decorative and/or protective wall covering that often

A N N A TO R M A :B O O K O F A B A N D O N E D D E TA I L S 26 MAY – 2 SEPTEMBER

Anna Torma, Abandoned Details I, 2018, (detail). Courtesy of the artist.

EXPLORE MORE W ITH THE ESKER APP

features embroidered inscriptions or proverbs)—all examples of women’s handwork brought together in a remarkable reflection on domestic space, labour, and value. Collected, treasured, and respected by Torma over many years, these common, domestic textiles are united in an act of reclamation and tribute to the value of women’s domestic work.

Torma’s wider practice has long included the gathering and sharing of stories through many voices, histories, and materials. She will often incorporate the creative work of others, such as drawings or texts based on the work of her husband and two sons, each artists themselves. The series Transverbal was inspired by her children’s early drawings, which were produced at a time in which communication between mother and child was based on visual signs, gestures, and empathetic guesswork. Red Fragments (2017) features the work of Torma’s late mother-in-law, a skillful needleworker who had suffered a stroke. Seeking to connect with her and to nurture mental and emotional healing, Torma encouraged her to create new redwork embroidery pieces using traditional Hungarian cross-stitch patterns. Brought together with Torma’s own fragmented and reworked pieces, the progressively empty cross-stitch squares offer a beautiful and melancholy rumination on aging, loss, and resilience.

Working slowly and labour-intensively, through time and with immaculate attention and skill, Torma invites us into her wild, many-layered imaginary. Her practice gives weight and value to humble objects and materials—the overlooked and undervalued. She invites us to enjoy the sensuality of texture and surface and offers us a glimpse into the spaces that she, herself, inhabits—her inner and outer worlds.

B I O G R A P H Y

Anna Torma has exhibited her work internationally and is represented in many public collections, including: the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; La Peau de l'Ours, Montréal; Foreign Affairs Art Collection, Ottawa; MSVU Art Gallery, Halifax; New Brunswick Art Bank, Fredericton; and Mint Museum, Charlotte.

In 2005, Torma received a UNESCO Aschberg Foundation Bursary to attend a residency at Cooperations in Wiltz, Luxembourg; in 2007, she was a recipient of the Canada Council's Paris Studios Grant; and in 2008 she received the Strathbutler Award from the Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation. Her major solo exhibition, Bagatelles, was mounted first at the New Brunswick Museum, Saint John (2012), travelled to Bellevue Arts Museum, Seattle (2013), and the Karsh-Masson Gallery, Ottawa (2014).

Torma is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and was a 2014 recipient of the Lieutenant-Governor's Award for High Achievement in Visual Arts.

1Anne Koval, Anna Torma: Needleworks, Halifax: MSVU Art Gallery, 2007.

1597; Harmonious Frequencies is a performance-based installation to be implemented in the Project Space over the course of twelve weeks. Working within a clean and minimal space, the artist will create an 8-foot diameter representation of the Fibonacci Sequence, which references the golden ratio found throughout nature. The pattern is made up of 1,597 dots configured in two sets of spirals that radiate in opposite directions. Each dot is created by wrapping a golden thread around itself and adhering it to the wall. The performance of labour, and the arrangement of the artist’s tools are precise and considered; the monotonous nature of the action is physically challenging and requires self-discipline to achieve a consistent and high level of craftsmanship throughout the project.

The methodical distribution of the Fibonacci pattern exemplifies an exacting natural order that references growth and the flow of energy. The physical reproduction of this pattern also alludes to ideas of organized chaos; the pattern is pre-established leaving only the repetitive action of producing the work.

Throughout the course of the exhibition, as the dot spirals grow and change, the audience will have the opportunity to enter the space, talk with the artist, and view the work up close. At the end of the exhibition, once the pattern is complete, each dot will be removed from the wall leaving nothing behind but time-lapse documentation of the performance.

I N TH E P R OJ E C T S PAC E

JOL IE B IRD : 1597 ; HARMONIOUS FREQUENC IES 7 MAY – 29 JULY

▶ UPCOMING IN THE PROJEC T SPACE

ALANA BARTOL & M IA RUSHTON AND ER IC MOSCHOPED IS : A H INT OF PERENN IAL MAG IC L INGERS IN I TS F INGERT IP S 6 AUGUST – 28 OC TOBER

Jolie Bird, Small Y, 2016. Photo by Jolie Bird.

B I O G R A P H Y

Jolie Bird is a textile artist who lives and works in Calgary, Alberta. She completed her MFA at NSCAD University, Halifax in 2013 and has also studied at the Alberta College of Art and Design, Calgary and Capilano University, North Vancouver. Bird works predominantly with textiles and fibre but also includes other mediums, found objects, and installation into her practice. She is drawn to slow techniques like hand stitching, weaving, and wrapping for the investment of time needed to complete the work. Repetitive and slow building in nature, the process becomes mentally and physically demanding, while at the same time feeling intuitive and somewhat meditative. Working slowly with simple tools and only her hands, she forms an intimate and tactile connection with the artwork. Her work has been exhibited locally, nationally, and in the United States.

EXPLORE MORE W ITH THE ESKER APP

P R O G R A M S

Esker Foundation provides free public programming to encourage

participation and to increase accessibility to contemporary art. Programs

are developed in response to our current exhibitions. Securing your

spot by registering in advance is strongly recommended. Our programs

are very popular and often have wait lists; if you register and are unable

to attend we ask that you cancel your registration in a timely manner.

All programming requires that an adult accompany children under the

age of 16.

Visit eskerfoundation.com/program/current to register. Unless

otherwise noted registration for programs will open on Monday

28 May at 11AM.

TA L K S

L I F E S TO R I E S TH R O U G H S T I TC H E D C LOTH S : A RT I S T TA L K A N D TO U R W I TH A N N A TO R M A

SAT U R DAY 26 M AY, 1–2P M

In this talk, Anna Torma will discuss three of her major bodies of work, including: Red Fragments, an installation that focuses on the story of an immigrant artist cutting her heritage embroidery collection into pieces, and reassembling them as a quilt, alongside an elderly woman trying to reclaim the embroidery techniques of her youth; Carpet of many hands, a textile assemblage of collected and found textiles that have been collaged and recontextualized into a contemporary artwork; and Abandoned Details, Torma’s latest series of hand embroideries, which reference a shift in her practice towards a more abstracted and open arrangement.

Registration recommended, opens 14 May.

A RT I S T TA L K W I TH J O L I E B I R D

F R I DAY 15 J U N E , 7–8P M

In this talk, Bird will discuss 1597; Harmonious Frequencies, an ongoing performance-based installation in the Esker Project Space. Bird is interested in performing slow building techniques with simple to no tools over a long duration of time. Her work explores the physical and mental effects of carrying out a repetitive process, the perception of time, and artisanship.


OY S TE R S H E L L S : A RT I S T TA L K A N D TO U R W I TH VA N E S SA B R OW N

F R I DAY 22 J U N E , 7–8P M

Vanessa Brown will present a talk and tour of her exhibition, The Witching Hour. In her talk, Brown will trace threads from her past work to her arrival at this present exhibition, while touching on the joys and pains of working with steel, the politics of scale, and the importance of fantasy in her work.

Registration recommended.

P L AC E H O L D E R : I T ’ S YO U R T U R N TO TA L K! W I TH D .TA L K S

SAT U R DAY 23 J U N E , 1–3P M

Join d.talks, in collaboration with Esker Foundation, at PLACEHOLDER. This is an unconventional book club where we present the theme of the afternoon and you bring your own book, poem, or object that you feel best articulates that theme. This is an opportunity for Calgarians to critically discuss and identify how the city and citizens affect and are impacted by local and global themes borne out of the work of Esker’s current exhibiting artists. Let’s form a new narrative in Calgary together! The theme of this PLACEHOLDER will be Thresholds.

Registration essential.

S P E A K I N G TR U TH TO M ATE R I A L S : R E V I S I T I N G TH E WO R K S H O P, F R O M B AU H AU S TO WO M A N H O U S E W I TH D R . E R I N S I LV E R

F R I DAY 10 AU G U S T, 7–8P M

This talk will extend in two directions, taking the contemporary practices of Vanessa Brown and Anna Torma as springboards not only for tracing genealogies of early-20th century avant-garde workshops, including Vkhutemas and the Bauhaus, to the feminist studio workshop initiatives of the 1970s, that fused preoccupations with craft, design, and art with social, political, and economic ideology, but also for testing out the possibilities afforded by transposing present-day theoretical and political vantage points onto historical ones for expanding canonical thinking and bringing lesser known histories (notably, those of women and racialized artists) to the fore. Dr. Silver is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory at the University of British Columbia.


TO U R S

B R I N G TH E B A B Y A RT TO U R

FR IDAYS 1 JUNE , 6 JULY, 3 AUGUST, 12–12 :30PM

Bring your baby to Esker Foundation! Have baby-friendly fun while discussing and questioning the current exhibitions on this relaxed, social tour. After your visit enjoy a 10% discount at Scarpetta Italian Eatery, Bite Grocer & Eatery, or Gravity Espresso & Wine Bar.


TH E S C R E E N , TH E D R E A M, TH E ST ITCH, AND THE WELD: EXHIB IT ION TO U R W I TH S H AU N A TH O M P S O N

SAT U R DAY 9 J U N E , 1–2P M

Join curator Shauna Thompson on this walking tour of Vanessa Brown’s The Witching Hour and Anna Torma’s Book of Abandoned Details. Together, we’ll discuss the narratives of material value, craft and fabrication, remembrance, and feminist histories, as well as the richness of humour, pleasure, and fantasy that weave together these two materially lush exhibitions.


TH R E A D S O F B E AU T Y: H U N G A R I A N TE X T I L E S I N TH E G L E N B OW C O L L E C T I O N

SATURDAY 16 JUNE, 11AM–12PM OR 1:30–2:30PM

Daryl Betenia, Manager, Collections will offer a behind-the-scenes look at Glenbow’s small but beautiful collection of Hungarian textiles. Learn about the various uses behind these textiles and the history of how they became part of the Glenbow collection. The tour will also highlight some special household items that are part of the collection. Participants will meet at the Glenbow Museum, transportation will not be provided. To attend this tour, participants must be over the age of 16.

Registration essential, opens 14 May.

L I F E LO N G L E A R N E R S

W E D N E S DAY 27 J U N E , 2 : 30–3 : 15P M

Seniors are invited to join us for a tour and discussion of the current exhibitions in a relaxed, social environment. Explore new ideas and engage creatively with arts and culture. After your visit enjoy a 10% discount at Scarpetta Italian Eatery, Bite Grocer & Eatery, or Gravity Espresso & Wine Bar.

Registration recommended. Register on our website or by phone at 403–930–2490.

C U R I O U S E R A N D C U R I O U S E R : E X H I B I T I O N TO U R W I TH E L I Z A B E TH D I G G O N

F R I DAY 27 J U LY, 7–8P M

Vanessa Brown and Anna Torma both layer fantastical imagery, personal histories, and hidden symbols into their work. Join Elizabeth Diggon, Esker’s assistant curator, on this informal tour that considers the conceptual and material threads that link together these two artistic practices.


TH E M AG I C O F M ATE R I A L : E X H I B I T I O N TO U R W I TH N AO M I P OT TE R

F R I DAY 1 7 AU G U S T, 6–7P M

Join Naomi Potter for a tour of the fantastic and magical worlds of Vanessa Brown and Anna Torma. Rich in symbolic imagery, both artists reclaim and activate craft traditions by challenging the historical stereotypes of certain materials or skills; embroidery, patchwork, and appliqué relegated to the domestic realm, and steel associated with industry, weaponry, and brutality. These seemingly opposite material selections act as a point of connection, proposing a conversation that binds as much as it does question the hierarchy of material and making.


B U S TO U R TO TH E C A N A D I A N M U S E U M O F M A K I N G

S U N DAY 26 AU G U S T, 1–5P M

Join us on an intimate and rare tour of the Canadian Museum of Making, located near Cochrane. This museum features a collection of machinery and tools that were built and used from 1750 to 1920 in Canada, Britain, and the United States, as well as an extensive African metalwork collection. The tour will also feature a blacksmithing demonstration by artist, blacksmith, and curator L. Japheth Howard. Bus transportation to and from the museum will be provided. Unfortunately, this program is not wheelchair or walker accessible. Participants must be over the age of 16.


WO R K S H O P S

M I N I M A S TE R S

TH U R S DAY S 7 J U N E , 5 J U LY, 2 AU G U S T,

1 1–1 1 : 45A M

Calling Calgary’s newest Contemporaries! Join us on the first Thursday of every month for a hands-on art class. We invite parents and guardians to bring their little ones, ages 3 to 5, to explore art making in this fun and social program. From collage to sculpture, every month we will explore new mediums and techniques. All are welcome to participate, and make sure you dress for mess! After your visit enjoy a 10% discount at Scarpetta Italian Eatery, Bite Grocer & Eatery, or Gravity Espresso & Wine Bar.


M A S TE R C L A S S F O R FA M I L I E S

S U N DAY S 1 7 J U N E , 1 5 J U LY, 1 9 AU G U S T,

1–2 :30P M

Join us for an afternoon of family fun at the gallery! Every month we will delve into new mediums with art projects that relate to our current exhibitions. This is an educational, energetic, hands-on program for kids ages 5-10. An adult is required to stay for the duration of the workshop. All materials will be provided. After your visit enjoy a 10% discount at Scarpetta Italian Eatery, Bite Grocer & Eatery, or Gravity Espresso & Wine Bar.


S T I TC H YO U R S TO R I E S! E M B R O I D E RY WO R K S H O P W I TH A N N A TO R M A

S U N DAY 27 M AY, 1–5P M

Learn reverse appliqué and other stitching techniques in this half-day workshop with Anna Torma. We will spend the afternoon learning basic stitching methods and design skills and will incorporate our own personal histories and visions into an embroidery project. Silks and linens will be provided, but participants are encouraged to bring their own treasures to incorporate into their project. Participants must be over the age of 12.


I N TR O D U C T I O N TO SA S H I KO W I TH J O L I E B I R D

SAT U R DAY 2 1 J U LY, 10A M –4P M

During this day-long workshop, participants will explore ‘sash(i)ko,’ a rural hand stitching technique from Northern Japan. Working

with traditional patterns and natural fabrics from Bird’s collection, participants will work on a stitch sampler alongside a centerpiece or wall hanging. All materials will be included. Participants must be over the age of 16.


F R O M LY R I C A L L I N E TO W E A R A B L E W IRE JEWELLERY W ITH JOAN IRV IN

SAT U R DAY 28 J U LY, 10A M–4P M

Observe, design, experiment, create! Join local jewellery artist, Joan Irvin (ACAD), for a tour of Vanessa Brown's exhibition, The Witching Hour. Afterwards, head into the studio for some creative alchemy of your own. Participants will work with copper and silver wire. All materials will be provided. No previous jewellery experience is required but participants must be over the age of 16.


A P P L I Q U É B U N T I N G W I TH C A I TL I N TH O M P S O N

SAT U R DAY 1 1 AU G U S T, 1–5P M

Drawing on the surface design techniques of the summer exhibitions, this workshop will bring together stitches and symbols in the form of appliqué bunting. Although bunting is often seen as decoration, Thompson will discuss the history of appliqué and how the international textile trade has influenced this resourceful technique. Each participant will create their own triangular "tammy" flag, embellished with appliqué and embroidery stitches learned in the workshop. All materials will be provided, but participants are encouraged to bring textiles and scraps of fabric to be incorporated into their flag. Participants must be over the age of 12.


C R A F T-A LO N G WO R K S H O P W I TH V E R O N I C A M U R P H Y, S TA S H

F R I DAY 1 7 AU G U S T, 7–9P M

What are some of the ways that we can take our craft skills to the next level of artistic expression? Enjoy an exhibition tour of Anna Torma: Book of Abandoned Details and then join Veronica Murphy from STASH for a craft-along and casual discussion at the gallery about pushing your crafting boundaries in your own work. Bring your most inspiring fibre craft supplies for the craft-along – knitters, crocheters, stitchers, spinners, and weavers are all welcome. Participants must be over the age of 16.


E S K E R E L S E W H E R E

TH E E S K E R A P PStay connected to our latest exhibitions, programs, and events with the Esker Foundation App, featuring Vanessa Brown, Anna Torma, and Jolie Bird discussing the materials and ideas behind their work. The app provides a digital companion to your gallery experience – including image, text, audio, and video – triggered by iBeacon technology as you move through our space.

Download the app for free on your device at either the App Store or Google Play.

The Lantern Library is a curated, publicly available reference library that accompanies our current exhibitions. Exhibiting artists and curators are invited to suggest book titles that reflect their current or past research interests or that offer insight into their work. It offers opportunities for further reflection and discovery, with the recognition that there are many different ways to approach an artwork or an exhibition.

T I TL E S C U R R E N TLY I N TH E L A N TE R N L I B R A RY I N C LU D E :

The Wound is a World – Billy-Ray Belcourt

Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse – Anne Carson

PUSH Stitchery: 30 Artists Explore the Boundaries of Stitched Art – Jamie Chalmers

Nothing More Comforting: Canada’s Heritage Food – Dorothy Duncan

The Argonauts – Maggie Nelson

Bluets – Maggie Nelson

Ru – Kim Thuy

Kiki Smith: Prints, Books, and Things – Wendy Wilson

The Bayeux Tapestry – David Wilson

L I T TL E L A N TE R N L I B R A RYEsker is pleased to be collaborating with Calgary Reads on our Little Lantern Library. If you are visiting Esker with little ones, a selection of children’s books chosen by Calgary Reads are available in the Lantern to help you explore and understand some of the ideas and themes in our current exhibitions from the comfort of our cozy reading nook.

TH E L A N TE R N L I B R A RYB O O K L AU N C H

O N TO U R : E A RTH L I N G S

N A N A I M O A RT G A L L E RY

3 AU G U S T – 6 O C TO B E R 2018

Organized and circulated by Esker Foundation, Earthlings is an exhibition of visionary ceramic sculpture and works on paper by artists Roger Aksadjuak, Shuvinai Ashoona, Pierre Aupilardjuk, Shary Boyle, Jessie Kenalogak, John Kurok, and Leo Napayok. Curated by Shary Boyle in collaboration with Shauna Thompson, the exhibition was previously presented at Doris McCarthy Gallery, Toronto from 1 November 2017 to 27 January 2018 and Galerie de l'UQAM, Montréal from 11 March to 14 April 2018.

P U B L I C AT I O N L AU N C H : S O N G S F O R P Y TH AG O R A S : P E TE R VO N T I E S E N H AU S E N

E S K E R F O U N DAT I O N

F R I DAY 8 J U N E , 6 : 30-8 : 30P M

Esker Foundation and the Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) present the Calgary launch of Songs for Pythagoras: Peter von Tiesenhausen. Published by the AGA, the publication accompanies Peter von Tiesenhausen's recent exhibition Songs for Pythagoras, formerly on view at the AGA. Artist Peter von Tiesenhausen will be in attendance, to discuss the publication and recent work.

Songs for Pythagoras: Peter von TiesenhausenIn addition to full colour images and text contributions by Natasha Chaykowski, Ellie Epp, Lucy R. Lippard, and David McGregor, the cloth-bound publication features a debossed tipped-in image on the front cover, an inserted artwork and a limited-edition press flexi disk of a seven minute outtake of audio from the sound and video installation Reservoir, produced in collaboration with Jen Reimer and Magnus Tiesenhausen.

Installation view of Peter von Tiesenhausen, Experience of the Precisely Sublime, Esker Foundation, 18 January to 11 May 2014. Photo by: John Dean Photo by: Elyse Bouvier.

U P C O M I N G E X H I B I T I O N

22 S E P TE M B E R – 2 1 D E C E M B E R O P E N I N G R E C E P T I O N : F R I DAY 2 1 S E P TE M B E R , 6–10P M

AGNES MARTIN: THE MIND KNOWS WHAT THE EYE HAS NOT SEENGuest curated by Bruce Russell in collaboration with Naomi Potter

In 1967, Agnes Martin unequivocally abandoned painting, gave up her New York studio, and, with a white pick-up truck and an Airstream trailer, set out on road trip. She travelled first to California, and then to her birthplace in Saskatchewan, before finally settling in the Southwestern United States, where she had lived prior to her decade-long sojourn in New York. Martin would live in New Mexico for the rest of her life.

On a Clear Day, a portfolio of thirty screenprints created in 1973 at the invitation of print publisher Robert Feldman of Parasol Press, marked Martin’s return to artistic practice. It represents an idealized exploration of the potential vocabulary of the grid, Martin’s chosen subject for much of her painting career.

This exhibition offers unprecedented focus on Martin’s print works, in addition to selected paintings that exist in dialogue with the prints. A parallel collection of ephemera and source material introduces Martin’s life and work, focusing on her on-going relationship to Canada - her childhood in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, as well as her later travels in Canada.

This exhibition is co-produced by Esker Foundation and MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina.

B I O G R A P H I E S

Agnes Martin (b. 1912, Saskatchewan; d. 2004, New Mexico) is among the most celebrated abstract painters of the 20th century. Martin studied Fine Arts and Arts Education at Columbia University, New York, receiving her Bachelor’s degree in 1942, before returning to Columbia to complete a Master of Arts in 1952. Martin initially gained notoriety in New York in the 1960s for her meditative geometric paintings characterized by her ongoing study of line and the grid. In 1967, Martin abandoned artistic practice and left New York, eventually settling in Cuba, New Mexico. In 1973, Martin returned to art making with On a Clear Day, a suite of thirty gridded silkscreens, after which she began painting again in 1974. Martin’s distinguished career included exhibitions at institutions across the United States, Canada, and Europe. Martin was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale in 1997. In 1998, she was awarded the College Art Association Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement, as well as the National Medal of the Arts. She was given the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts Award in 2004. Martin painted until a few months before her death in 2004.

Bruce Hugh Russell studied at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University) and at Concordia University, Montréal. An independent curator and art historian, he has written extensively on both contemporary art and art history, publishing in journals including Canadian Art, Studies in Visual Communications, and Parachute. In addition, he has written for institutions including the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal; the Belkin Gallery, Vancouver; the Ottawa Art Gallery; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts.

Recently, he co-curated the exhibition Artists, Architects and Artisans: Canadian Art 1890 – 1918 (2013), at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Russell is currently working on a major biography of Montréal cultural philanthropist F. Cleveland Morgan. He recently retired as a sessional instructor for the Department of Art History at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon.

Agnes Martin, 1988, Galisteo, NM. ©Donald Woodman (ARS New York).



TAMMI CAMPBELL: DEAR AGNES

Dear Agnes is a series of visual letters that serve as Tammi Campbell’s wordless communion with Saskatchewan-born modernist artist Agnes Martin. Beginning in 2010, Campbell would start each day in her Saskatoon studio by drawing a different variation of a grid in graphite on Japanese rag paper. Campbell would then write the salutation “Dear Agnes” in the top left corner, fold the drawing twice like a letter, and then store it in sequence. Campbell completed her last letter to Martin on 31 December 2017. This near-daily practice has led to over 1,000 drawings, the final three months of which will be on view at Esker.

The duration of this sustained ritual mirrors Agnes Martin’s mid-career hiatus from artistic practice, a period that ended with On a Clear Day, a portfolio of thirty silkscreen prints on Japanese rag which visually manifest the varied permutations of the grid. Dear Agnes is reflective of Campbell’s homage to Agnes Martin, her ongoing dialogue with the aesthetic legacies of modernism, and her meditation on silence, ritual, and repetition within artistic praxis.

B I O G R A P H Y

Tammi Campbell holds a BFA from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. Over the past ten years, her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Canada, namely at the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon (2015); the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto (2014); the Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina (2013); Mercer Union, Toronto (2013); and the Galerie de l’UQAM, Montréal (2013). In 2016, a major solo exhibition of her work was presented at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, followed by a solo exhibition at the College Building Galleries at the University of Saskatchewan (2017) and a web commission project for the Remai Modern, Saskatoon (2017). Campbell has also participated in Shine a Light: Canadian Biennial 2014 at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, as well as the 30th International Symposium of Contemporary Art of Baie-St-Paul.

In recent years, Campbell’s work has been the subject of several feature articles in Canadian Art, Border Crossings, and C Magazine, and her work is part of several institutional collections, including BMO Financial Group, Toronto; Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina; MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina; Mouvement Desjardins, Québec; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; RBC Financial Group, Toronto; Remai Modern, Saskatoon; TD Bank Group, Toronto. She lives and works in Saskatoon.

Tammi Campbell, Dear Agnes, July 31, 2016. Graphite on Japanese Paper, 11 x 8.5 inches with letterfold. Private Collection.



SARAH STEVENSON: NOTHING HIDDEN

For the past 30 years, Sarah Stevenson has been making sculptural work that considers and defines space in the most simple and elegant of ways. Like drawings in air, wire and string are arranged into bilateral and almost symmetrical forms and are suspended from the ceiling like a weightless bloom of jellyfish or floating microscopic particles. Starting always with drawing, forms are mapped out on paper in a constellation of lines. The drawing then becomes the pattern or blueprint for the sculpture, the places where verticals and horizontals intersect act as guides to determine the tie points where strings are attached to a series of wire rings. Between each connection, an open weave of wire and thread forms a grid. As the grid builds the form emerges, defined by variations in length of string, tension, and how slack or taut the weave. This simple method of making, and the adaptability of the grid, creates an ideal formula with infinite possibilities. The finished forms, far from simple, are akin to mathematic ciphers, or scientific illustrations showing us that the natural world is equally complex and beautiful in microscopic or cosmic proportions.

B I O G R A P H Y

Sarah Stevenson was born in Worthing, England. She grew up in Canada and currently lives and works in Montréal. She received a BFA from the University of Victoria in 1984. She has worked in sculpture for over thirty years, often creating hollow abstract forms using transparent materials. Stevenson's work has been exhibited at various institutions in Canada, the United States, and South America, including exhibitions at Galerie René Blouin, Montréal (2017); Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Québec City (2010); Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto (2007); Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (2002); and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge (1999). Her work is included in public and private collections, including the Canada Council Art Bank, the Crédit Lyonnais Canada, and the Collection Lambert en Avignon. Stevenson is represented in Montréal by Galerie René Blouin.

Sarah Stevenson, Vessels, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

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MAY

Saturday 26 May 1–2PM Life Stories through Stitched Cloths: Artist Talk and Tour with Anna Torma

Sunday 27 May 1–5PM Stitch your Stories! Embroidery Workshop with Anna Torma

JUNE

Friday 1 Jun 12–12:30PM Bring the Baby Art Tour

Thursday 7 Jun 11–11:45AM Mini Masters

Friday 8 Jun 6:30–8:30pm Publication launch of Songs for Pythagoras: Peter von Tiesenhausen. Presented in partnership with the Art Gallery of Alberta.

Saturday 9 Jun 1–2PM The screen, the dream, the stitch, and the weld: Exhibition Tour with Shauna Thompson

Friday 15 Jun 7–8PM Artist Talk with Jolie Bird

Saturday 16 Jun 11AM–12PM Threads of Beauty: Hungarian Textiles or 1:30–2:30PM in the Glenbow Collection

Sunday 17 Jun 1–2:30PM Master Class for Families

Friday 22 Jun 7–8PM Oyster Shells: Artist Talk and Tour with Vanessa Brown

Saturday 23 Jun 1–3PM PLACEHOLDER: It’s your turn to talk! with d.talks

Wednesday 27 Jun 2:30–3:15PM Lifelong Learners

JULY

Thursday 5 Jul 11–11:45AM Mini Masters

Friday 6 Jul 12–12:30PM Bring the Baby Art Tour

Sunday 15 Jul 1–2:30PM Master Class for Families

Saturday 21 Jul 10AM–4PM Introduction to Sashiko with Jolie Bird

Friday 27 Jul 7–8PM Curiouser and curiouser: Exhibition Tour with Elizabeth Diggon

Saturday 28 Jul 10AM–4PM From Lyrical Line to Wearable Wire Jewellery with Joan Irvin

AUGUST

Thursday 2 Aug 11–11:45AM Mini Masters

Friday 3 Aug 12–12:30PM Bring the Baby Art Tour

Friday 10 Aug 7–8PM Speaking Truth to Materials: Revisiting the Workshop, from Bauhaus to Womanhouse with Dr. Erin Silver

Saturday 11 Aug 1–5PM Appliqué Bunting with Caitlin Thompson

Friday 17 Aug 6–7PM The Magic of Material: Exhibition Tour with Naomi Potter

Friday 17 Aug 7–9PM Craft–Along Workshop with Veronica Murphy, STASH

Sunday 19 Aug 1–2:30PM Master Class for Families

Sunday 26 Aug 1–5PM Bus Tour to the Canadian Museum of Making

C A L E N DA R O F E V E N T S I N F O

V I S I T

FREE ADMISSION

HOURS Tuesday to Sunday 11 – 6 Friday 11 – 8 Monday Closed

PARKING Complimentary

ACCESSIBILITY Barrier–free

L A N D AC K N OW L E D G M E N T

Esker Foundation is located on the traditional territories of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) and the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta, which includes the Siksika, the Piikuni, the Kainai, the Tsuut’ina, and the Stoney Nakoda First Nations. The City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III. Esker Foundation extends sincere appreciation for the opportunity to live and learn on this territory in mutual respect and gratitude.

F O U RTH F LO O R , 1011 – 9 AV E N U E S E I N G L E W O O D , C A LG A RY, A L B E RTA , C A N A DA T2G 0H7

P R O G R A M R E G I S TR AT I O N

PROGRAMS Register at eskerfoundation.com/program/current

TOURS Complimentary tours are available on request.

Please pre–book at least two weeks in advance. Call 403 930 2490 or email [email protected]

C O N TAC T

TELEPHONE 403 930 2490EMAIL [email protected] www.eskerfoundation.comTWITTER @EskerFoundation @EskerCalgaryINSTAGRAM @EskerFoundationFACEBOOK Esker Foundation

E S K E R F O U N DAT I O N .C O M

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