CALLING ALL INTERESTED FABRIC ARTISTS AND CRAFTSPEOPLE!
We invite you to participate in creating a quilt celebrating the Grand River. See upcoming workshop dates below.
We hold a series of free information sessions/workshops during the year. The idea behind these workshops is to give people ideas and enable them to work towards a completed square. Please contact us for more information about an upcoming workshop or if you are interested in having us come to your community.
This is part of a larger project called The Voice of The River: Grand River Community Play Project that invites people in communities all along the Grand River to participate in a 310 Kilometre performance. Sponsored by the Centre for Rural Creativity in Blyth, Ontario, our group has been meeting with people who live along the river to make music, sing, tell stories and create artwork, such as this quilt, that expresses our interconnected relationship with the Grand.
The Quilt Project Process:
Anyone interested can participate! You can work alone or join one of our upcoming workshops (see below). There are no rules for creating a square aside from a final size of 10 x 10 inches. Any approach is welcome (sewing, painting, applique, felting etc), and we encourage experimentation and creativity. The most important thing is that each squareshould tell your story or depict your relationship to the river. Rather than a traditional rectangular quilt, each of your squares will be tied together to create the shape of the river and be displayed with a map of the Grand River watershed identifying where each square came from. We will also display a matching “quilt” of your stories about each square.
Want to participate? Contact Pat Flood at pflood@uoguelph.ca
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
APRIL 8, 2025
Dunnville Community Lifespan Centre
275 Ramsey Dr. Dunnville, ON, N1A 0A7
Two workshop times:
10:30 to 1:00 pm
2:00 to 4:30 pm
Photo credit: Dunnville Community Lifespan Centre
APRIL 12, 2025
Southgate Public Library
Library Mill Room, 80 Proton Street, North, Dundalk, ON, N0C 1B0
Workshop time: 10:30 am – 1:30 pm|
Photo credit: Southgate Public Library
MAY 3, 2025
Six Nations of the Grand
30 Cao Lane, Ohsweken, ON, N0A 0A7
Workshop time: 12:00 – 3:00 pm
Photo credit: Muscle and Bone Blog
To attend a workshop, contact Pat Flood at pflood@uoguelph.ca
ABOUT THE ORGANIZER: PAT FLOOD
Patricia Flood is a theatre, film and television designer and a past President of the Associated Designers of Canada. Her credits include Set Design for the films Ararat and Where the Truth Lies, directed by Atom Egoyan; Art Director for The Kids in the Hall television series; Resident Designer for Theatre Calgary; and many seasons at the Blyth Festival in Blyth, Ontario. She worked as Assistant to the Head of Design (Susan Benson) at the Stratford Festival, where she spent several seasons assisting designers Desmond Heeley and Tanya Moiseiwitsch. She co-created a touring exhibition of the Scenography of Cameron Porteous, long time Head of Design at the Shaw Festival and is the author of Susan Benson: Art, Design, Craft published by Firefly Books. Pat has taught Design for the Theatre at Concordia University in Montreal and has recently retired as an Associate Professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. She worked as a design consultant on both prologue pieces for the Grand River Play Project in 2022, on Six Nations territory in Ohsweken and in Waterloo and is looking forward to more adventures as we travel along the length of this beautiful river.
PAST WORKSHOPS
On July 12 between 4-8pm, 2024 we held a workshop for the Grand River Project: the Voice of a River at the Old Post Office in Cambridge. The location was perfect and houses the amazing Idea Exchange. The windows are floor to ceiling and offer a spectacular view of the Grand River as she makes her way along. A huge thank you to the Idea Exchange led by Pam Berry along with her incredible team who shared and cared and offered and laughed as the workshop went on. It was very much appreciated and the beginning of a collaboration of things to come. The gathering saw high school students alongside elders, folks from different cultures. Stories got told, poems were recited, art was built, quilts were discussed, images were shown, and music was played. The ease of the event was about love of place, a desire to be together to share stories, and to work toward being a better community member, not only with each other, but to one of our most vital relations, the Grand River. Lots of things are coming up – stay tuned, drop us a note, or jump aboard if you can. This is an all inclusive happening and it’d be great to have your energy as a part of the Voice of a River.