Northern crafters to exhibit in Toronto

Nellie Matthews and Patricia Ningewance are among the 10 northern Ontario artists to be featured in an upcoming Ontario Crafts Council Gallery exhibition in Toronto.
The exhibit, From the North: Contemporary and Traditional Craft, is curated by Jean Marshall, a visual artist and band member of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug.
“(Matthews) has an older piece and a wall hanging set of three,” Marshall said. “She is also submitting a new work that is quite large – a big circular piece on leather with four sections creating a circle. I’m pretty excited about that one.”
Matthews, from KI, has been doing beadwork for 22 years while Ningewance, from Lac Seul, has been doing fabric art for 26 years.
“Her work is exquisite and very powerful,” Marshall said about Ningewance. “She does wall hangings and she incorporates different fabrics and textiles, and then she highlights with embroidery thread and beads creating these wonderful pieces that have stories. She is pretty much a storyteller through her artwork.”
Marshall said the artists have an opportunity to discuss their work during the Oct. 20 opening of the exhibition, which runs until Nov. 20.
The other artists are Mike Anderson, Shannon Gustafson, Lisa and Erick Hanson, Elsie Kwandibens, Marlene Kwandibens, Melissa Twance and Ken Wabegijig.
“Ken Wabegijig is an individual who does all sorts of crafts, but we focused in on his wood working skills,” Marshall said. “He has about seven bowls that are going to be in the show.
They are all carved by hand out of maple burl, spruce burl, yellow birch burl.”
Marshall said the Hansons’ work is an interesting combination as Erick makes the guitars and Lisa does the artwork on the guitars.
“She’ll carve it, paint it,” she said. “She even does bead work. She does different things.”
Marshall is looking forward to the opening reception Oct. 20. She is scheduled to travel to Toronto on Oct. 18 to install the artwork at the Ontario Crafts Council Gallery.
“That’s going to be the moment of everything making sense and coming together because right now everything feels really scattered and I haven’t seen all the work together,” Marshall said. “The beautiful part about curating is that moment.”
Marshall curated the Celebrating the Creators exhibition at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery in 2010.
The province’s only non-profit multi-disciplinary craft organization that supports craftspeople and their work, the Ontario Crafts Council is a registered charitable organization founded in 1976 as a merger between The Canadian Guild of Crafts and the Ontario Craft Foundation.