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Lynne Heller: Nine Sisters and 115 Unused Quilts
Gil McElroy
Nov 30, 2002 - Jan 14, 2003
Art Gallery of Cobourg
Cobourg, Ontario
In an exhibition of mixed media wall hangings that has been touring Canada for the last year,
Toronto artist Lynne Heller elegantly argues a fecund relationship between the traditional craft
of the pieced quilt, and the pictorial strain of fine art painting. Nine Sisters and 115 Unused
Quilts takes it origin in the story of the nine Merkley sisters, distant maternal relatives of
Heller's whose lives, spent unmarried (save for one) and in the Canadian countryside, spanned
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After the death of the youngest in 1975, 115 unused
quilts-all sewn by the sisters in preparation for the marriages that were expected of them but
which eight turned their backs upon to pursue independent life paths- were found stored away in
the family attic, unused.
Drusilla / Red Rose, 2001 84 x 63in
silk, cotton, wool, polyblends, linen, silk/metal organza, lace, heat transfers, embroidery floss, heritage quilt pieces
hand appliquéd, hand quilted, heat transferred imagery, embroidery
quilted by: Jolene Antle photography: Janusz Wrobel
The lives of the sisters-Anne, Drusilla, Edith, Ella May, Estelle, Maud, Josephine, Louise, and
Sarah- provided Heller with corresponding points of artistic departure. In each of their names,
she created large 84" high by 63" wide wall hangings that have, at their literal and metaphoric
center, antique pieced quilts. In Drusilla/Red Rose (all works are 2001), for instance, that
center is established with by an antique Art Deco fan quilt pattern, set atop layers of
cloth -silk, cotton, linen- that, though comprising a supportive textile backing, have other
more significant aesthetically contextual functions. The only rigidly rectangular element in
this work (and all the others) is a final sheet of cloth backing with which the hanging is
Drusilla ( Detail )
quilted by: Jolene Antle photography: Janusz Wrobel
attached to a wall. Within its field (and encompassing the core antique quilt), the multiple
layers of textile are shaped and arranged so as to representationally establish a resonant
thematic echo which reverberates through the Nine Sisters sequence. On either side of (and
partially beneath) the antique center, two vertical strips of material form kinds of curving
arcs that roughly mirror one another. Two squares of material (each made up of two triangles of
different textiles) are set on either side of the antique quilt, attached about a third of the
way down. The consequence of it all are a sequence of hangings within which lurks references to
perspective and dimensionality, and which exhibit a decidedly figurative bent.
Anne / Arm & Hammer, 2001 84 x 63in
silk, cotton, wool, polyblends, linen, silk/metal organza, lace, heat transfers, heritage quilt pieces
hand appliquéd, hand quilted, heat transferred imagery
quilted by: Jolene Antle photography: Janusz Wrobel
This figuration is generic and anonymous, visually specifying nothing and no one in particular.
But Heller individualizes it with the addition of some visual (and, indeed, titular) reference
to staple items from the realm of the domestic of which the Merkley sisters were presumably a
part. In Drusilla/Red Rose, for instance, it is packets of Red Rose tea. Heller has made heat
transfer images of the packaging of said dry good onto small pieces of cloth, and inserted rows
of them into each work, in the form of a framing device, used as trim or edging along a side. In
Anne/Arm & Hammer, it is, of course, images of boxes of baking soda arranged in like manner. And
in Louise/Sweet & Lo and Josephine/Twin, even artificial sweeteners find a place.
Anne ( Detail )
quilted by: Jolene Antle photography: Janusz Wrobel
Artifice is, in fact, critical to Heller's work. In Anne/Arm & Hammer, she has incorporated two
heat transfer enlargements of buttons, attached at points where the antique quilt engages its
textile backing, and so metaphorically anchors the old to the new. Though dimensionality is
pointed at in each of the works of Nine Sisters, in the end Heller takes a pass on the reality
of the thing, as if the inclusion of an actual button would push things too far away from fine
art and too close to the craft end of the artistic spectrum. Instead, she cleaves closely to a
path which avoids outright aesthetic commitments either way. It's an openness that pays off.
This review originally appeared in Art Papers Magazine, March/April 2003.
See more of Lynne Heller's work online at:
www.lynneheller.com.
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Gil McElroy is a critic, independent curator, artist, and poet currently living in Colborne, Ontario. His latest books are Gravity & Grace: Selected Writing on Contemporary Canadian Art (Gaspereau Press), and a book of poetry, Dream Pool Essays (Talonbooks).
View Gil's
curriculum vitae.