brin & BOOTS SERIES: ME PINKS

2008

ARTIST’S RESIDENCY AT LANDFALL TRUST• BRIGUS NEWFOUNDLAND

Most of us have experienced the memories that come flooding back when we find a piece of a well-used textile . . . the sleeve off-cut of a favourite shirt, the ragged bit of a baby blanket, the never-quite-hemmed curtains, even a still-smelly mitten.

But what if the fabrics themselves have memories? As they cycle through their own lives do they bring along their experiences and come to possess a sort of wisdom? 

In this series of “Brin and Boots” I create from yarns and fabrics – many of them part of my own personal history – stories of Newfoundland.  Knitting is often a first use of virgin threads; felting and rug hooking are an end stage for individual fibres, and yet a “community” of incredible resilience and usefulness.  These fabric relics take a form resembling hooked rugs, to reflect on the textile vernacular, personal songs and stories, and spirit of Newfoundland’s people and place.

“Brin” is burlap, most often from coffee bags. The trigger-finger mits are typical, the footwear from the local thrift shop, the song from “A Great Bid Sea Hove in Long Beach”.

The following story might be imagined .

For my 12th birthday my Aunt Vera, who lives in Harvey NB knit me a pink sweater with pearl buttons and matching mitts and socks.  They were the first matching outfit I ever had, and the first not made from our dull, scratchy homespun. 

And they were my pride and joy.

I wore them even when they shrank . . . or I grew, and the town kids of course teased me about “Me Pinks”, except for Georgie Snook who pretended to admire them, even though he really only wanted to get inside them.

Now I am a hairdresser in Dartmouth, far away from family and town, but also away from the poorness and fishing.  I have some decent clothes for work and play, but still fondly remember “Me Pinks”, even though they are probably now wiping rags or cut up for rugs.