Invisible Artists: A Perspective on Artisans and their Artistic Work
Art at De fil en aiguille! Photo by Anaeli Montenegro Nodarse
De fil en aiguille! Regard sur l’artisanat is a free, temporary exhibition at the Maison Pierre-Chartrand by the Cercle de Fermières de Rivière-des-Prairies. This Maison Culturelle allows residents to look at local art, such as embroidered and sewn tablecloths, handkerchiefs, and other domestic and household utilities.
Out of the artworks presented, my favourite depicted a framed, three-dimensional sculpture of two bluebirds. Their richly ornated wings shined and popped out of a golden frame in such a way that the birds seemed to take flight. The skilled craft of Hélène, the dedicated farmer and talented artist behind the work of art on display, created an aesthetic and realistic effect: the birds’ wings were cut with precision and carefulness to make a design equally beautiful and naturalistic. The attention to detail in the texture and colour of the feathers, oak tree bark, and leaves was astounding.
While it may seem like a minor display of the artistic pastimes of stay-at-home mothers, wives, and farmers with no prior studies or diploma in fine arts, no relations to academia, higher education, or any legitimized field for that matter, amateurs merely “having fun” or “exploring,” this exhibition showcases, instead, decades of feminine work and skills not as artisans but as artists in their own right.
For that reason, this exhibition left me with a deep impression: it was surprising to see much creativity and innovation coming from the most rudimentary materials and techniques. How many of these “invisible artists,” grandmothers, mothers, and daughters still go ignored because their skillfulness and craftmanship remain undermined all their lives, downplayed as “decorations” or “household chores,” like making stockings for their kids?
And yet, the durability and beauty present in the works of these unnamed artisans cast a light on the worth, both qualitative and quantitative, of unpaid women’s work, as well as their potential to produce art of equal freshness and innovation to that of any man, if given the right opportunities in recognition of their talent as displayed in the exhibition.
“Regards et réflexions sur l’artisanat” invites viewers to deconstruct their perspectives on the meaning and value of artworks outside the narrow constraints imposed by societal and academic standards. What counts as art? What is the value of an artwork? What is culture? Most importantly, how many people remain erased, silenced, and overlooked as artists, their creative prospects rendered inert for reasons outside their control, because of who they are, because they stand outside these boxes, outside the margins of those definitions and socially defined realities, and how can we change that?
The artworks featured at the exhibition, even the most “ordinary” ones presented as household objects, carried a story: some were crafted 30 or 40 years ago by their meticulous makers, talented artisans whose skills were undervalued and trivialized, voiceless artists who remained unknown, shrouded in mystery, and rendered invisible, that is, up until now.
De fil en aiguille! Regard sur l’artisanat local is at the Maison Pierre-Chartrand (8000 Gouin) until August 28. Details HERE.
