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Exhibit featuring multiple artists opens at the LMC

The fibre-art exhibition will be featured from Nov. 9th to Dec. 7th.
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ENTICING - Matt Gould of Red Deer designed this threaded and felt piece

BY KALISHA MENDONSA

Lacombe Express

Lacombians will soon be able to view an exciting and dimensional art exhibit, ‘The Ties That Bind’, which features the dynamic work of four Alberta artists, Margie Davidson, Diane Duncan, Matt Gould and Judy Weiss.

Davidson, Duncan, Gould and Weiss each have unique styles that compliment the theme of being tied to the world around them, as well as their own personalities and relationships.

The fibre-art exhibition will be featured at the Lacombe Memorial Centre from Nov. 9th to Dec. 7th.

The exhibition is organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta, with works featured from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition program, and has been curated by Shane Golby.

“I told the artists to decide what the theme meant to them and have that dictate what they created or chose to share,” Golby said. “It’s quite an eclectic exhibition, which are my favourite kinds of exhibitions to put together,” he said with a laugh.

Golby said each of the artists involved in the display has a distinct take on what the binding ties means to them.

“For example, Margie Davidson’s work primarily focuses on her ties to the environment and the environment near her home. Matt Gould is looking at ties to his own creativity and his own personality and how history relates to his being,” Golby explained.

“Diane Duncan explored ties to her family, and Judy Weiss is very interested in the ties within the ways people connect across social dynamics and their communities.”

He said this exhibition features a huge variety of style and expression, something he hopes many communities of Alberta will be able to appreciate.

“This exhibition will be travelling throughout 20 different venues across the province and that means the art gets crated and shipped multiple times and causes quite a bit of wear on the items. Because of that, I decided we would concentrate on fibre art, which is quite durable,” he said.

“I wanted to develop an exhibition focused on fibre art, but one that explores more than what we might think of when we first consider fibre art. Most often, people think of something two-dimensional, quilt-based, wall-hanging kind of work and I decided that I’d like to shake that up quite a bit.”

All of the pieces involve stitch work, but Golby really wanted the artists to decide what ‘Ties That Bind’ meant to them. The artists came up with unique answers, including Red Deer’s Gould, who said, “My excitement with fibre comes from my connection to the material and the exceptionally diverse opportunities for expression and approaches it affords.”

On the Alberta Foundation for the Arts web site, Golby describes the collective exhibition as one that challenges artists to use a needle and thread to, “Explore their ties to the past, present and future of the ‘family’ of mankind.”

The pieces featured in the exhibit range from cross-stitch, multi-media project work that explores topics of family, friendship, personal development and our ties to the greater world.

“A strong basis of all my exhibitions is educational. I like to put together exhibitions which provide multiple entry points, and multiple perspectives on a theme. I want to provide a broad range of art for people to get into, regardless if it’s one artist or many,” Golby said.

The travelling art is also accompanied by an educational guide, available online through the Art Gallery of Alberta web site, under the TREX (travelling exhibition) portion.

These are meant as resources for students and teachers to gain an in-depth understanding and exploration of fibre art, but can also be helpful in letting audiences gain a deeper experience of the exhibition.

“Often, when you go to a public exhibition, it’s a collection of the artist’s most recent work and you don’t really get to know their work beyond that and understand them more,” said Golby.

“Usually, you’re presented with only one part of them or one body of their work. I like to incorporate a variety of artists and explore a variety of media if I can. I want them to share their takes on the theme, and build on that.”

The exhibition is an ode to the connection between families, friends, man and earth. It focuses on ties to ourselves and to others, and is meant to inspire thought and <span class="n_ 725