Speaker Series
Latest Past Events
Speaker Series :: What Antique Samplers Have to Teach Us :: Lianne van Leyen
Zoom WebinarNeedle: first instrument of learning in the hand. Female education: a privilege, not a right and unequal. Lianne explores the significance of antique samplers in understanding the historical role of women and girls in education. She will share how knowledge and skills were transmitted through needlework in traditional and nontraditional subjects during a time when education was not a right and not universally accessible. Antique sampler and needlework tools presentation via Zoom discussing the sampler-making tradition demonstrated in the 1897 Schoolhouse Samplers’ 350+ piece collection of antique schoolgirl samplers from 1726 to 1978. Members, sign in to My EAC/Mon ACB to register for Lianne van Leyen’s engaging presentation on Saturday, January 27, 2024. 4:30 Newfoundland Time 4 pm Atlantic Time 3 pm Eastern Time 2 pm Central Time 1 pm Mountain Time noon Pacific Time Lianne van Leyen is a domestic interpreter and historic cook at Upper Canada Village. She prepares and serves meals and desserts using period-correct recipes and methods made in an open hearth or a step wood cook stove. She teaches children and young adults historic cooking and interprets and demonstrates Canada’s history on the eve of Confederation for visitors from around the world. Lianne’s career has spanned fine arts, child protection, banking, and higher education management. She lives with her husband Grant in a one-room Ontario schoolhouse built in 1897 and owns a church built next door in the 1920s. The couple are also caretakers of three antique British vehicles. She spent years learning to paint, draw and teach herself many crafts, including cross stitch. Lianne van Leyen is an artist and a storyteller. Lianne holds incomplete, timeworn, damaged and unusual samplers as precious and deserving of love and attention. She is the caretaker of a growing collection of antique schoolgirl samplers and the designer behind 1897 Schoolhouse Samplers. Her diverse collection of samplers, currently numbering more than 350 pieces, includes dated examples from 1726 to 1978, made in the UK, U.S.A., Europe and Canada. Lianne van Leyen shares her sampler collection and the history of needlework with local, national and international needlework and sampler guilds and public museums through in-person and virtual presentations via her website and social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram. She leads retreats and workshops, has had her work published in PieceWork magazine and has contributed to podcasts. Lianne works to increase exposure and interest in historical textiles and needle art within and outside the stitching community. In 2018, Lianne sought to give a new purpose to her sampler collection and began creating original and reproduction cross-stitch patterns. Through her company, 1897 Schoolhouse Samplers, she shares the stories of overlooked antiques. She makes her cross-stitch patterns available to modern stitchers for retail purchase from local and virtual needlework shops worldwide and to wholesale customers via Hoffman Distributing Company. Ragamuffin Schoolgirl Sampler Patterns 1897schoolhousesamplers.ca facebook.com/SchoolhouseSamplers instagram.com/1897SchoolhouseSamplers
Previously Offered :: Speaker Series :: Marie-Renée Otis
Zoom WebinarMarie-Renée Otis is a textile artist — her chosen medium of expression is art embroidery and the overarching goal of her artistic work is to add beauty to the world. In her presentation, Marie-Renée will share the beginnings of her creative adventure with art embroidery and the various stages of her technical evolution; she will also discuss the recurring images and archetypes in her works: Woman, Mother Earth and the river and mountains of her hometown of Baie-Saint-Paul. Members, sign in to My EAC/Mon ACB to register for Marie-René’s engaging presentation on Saturday, November 18. 4:30 Newfoundland Time 4 pm Atlantic Time 3 pm Eastern Time 2 pm Central Time 1 pm Mountain Time noon Pacific Time In an increasingly mechanized, technological world, Marie-Renée remains dedicated to hand embroidery, creating unique, contemporary works that combine the past and the present as she uses traditional and historic embroidery techniques and materials sourced from around the world. Her embroideries are brimming with gold threads, jewelry, stones, beads, and metal pieces, blended and stitched next to each other. Marie-Renée was born in 1955 and raised in Baie-Saint-Paul, a city known for its vibrant artistic community. Her interest in drawing and working with her hands began at an early age. Her fascination with textiles came about later, during her CEGEP studies in Québec City. The pleasure and satisfaction she experienced while working with cotton, silks, and wool was why she chose to go to the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. At the time, the weaving studios with vertical looms were dynamic and stimulating venues for local art students. Marie-Renée completed her BFA in 1978. After finishing her studies, she stayed on in Trois-Rivières, married and had two children. Her interests progressed from weaving to embroidery. Working with a needle on canvas allowed her to be even more creative with colours, materials and designs. After ten years of city living, Marie-Renée fulfilled one of her lifelong dreams: to return to her hometown of Baie-Saint-Paul to live closer to nature and her roots. In 1986, her work as an artist was put on hold when she became a TV host/reporter at the local station. The job allowed her to develop new personal and professional skills and abilities, but she found herself constantly struggling to balance her public life and her artistic ambitions. In 1995, she left her media position to embrace the world of education, becoming a teacher at the CEGEP in Charlevoix. She took on this new challenge with enthusiasm and confidence. Another major shift in her professional career happened in 2001. She finally achieved what she had been hoping to do for many years: become a full-time artist, devote herself to creating art embroidery, open her studio to the public and build a portfolio of works that has gained her local, national and international recognition. Although her studio is now closed, she continues to be an active member of the artistic community in Baie-Saint-Paul and is recognized as a master of art embroidery. She presents conferences, works with artisans in Africa, participates in many exhibitions, studies techniques from other cultures and other times, teaches occasionally, and networks with artists from around the world.
Previously Offered :: Speaker Series :: Salley Mavor
Zoom WebinarSalley Mavor will talk about her journey as an artist who tells stories with three-dimensional embroidery. The presentation will cover a wide range of creative endeavours, from illustration to doll-making to stop-motion animation, demonstrating that there are no limits to what can be expressed with a needle and thread! This is an opportunity to take a behind-the-scenes peek at Ms. Mavor’s innovative creative process, which is unmatched within the fibre art world. Members, sign in to My EAC/Mon ACB to register for Salley's informative presentation on Saturday, October 14. 4:30 pm Newfoundland Standard Time 4 pm Atlantic Standard Time 3 pm Eastern Standard Time 2 pm Central Standard Time 1 pm Mountain Standard Time noon Pacific Standard Time Salley Mavor grew up in the village of Woods Hole, Massachusetts in a family who connected with their community through art, music and dance. At home, there were always art supplies close at hand and a sense that time was available for creative pursuit. Drawing with crayons was never enough for Salley. She remembers feeling that her pictures were not finished until something real was glued, stapled or sewn to it. At a young age, she held an open-minded view of what constitutes art, writing in a 1964 school essay at age nine, “Art is everything… records, clocks, blackboards, people, snowflakes and everything. That is why I like art.” As an illustration major at the Rhode Island School of Design in the 1970s, she left traditional mediums behind, preferring to communicate her ideas with sculptural needlework. For most of her 45-year career, she has followed this path, creating narrative scenes in bas-relief, much like miniature, shallow stage sets, with figures and props attached to embellished fabric backgrounds. She has spent decades developing her signature style and working methods, carving out her own niche within the children’s book world and the fibre art community. Ms. Mavor has illustrated 11 picture books using her distinctive blend of materials and hand-stitching techniques, including Pocketful of Posies, which won the 2011 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and the 2011 Golden Kite Award. Her popular how-to book, Felt Wee Folk is in its second edition, inspiring creativity in all ages. Her most recent picture book is My Bed: Enchanting Ways to Fall Asleep Around the World. She lives and works in her home studio in Falmouth, Massachusetts. You can see more about Salley and her creations on her website at weefolkstudio.com.