Drawn, September 21 to November 2, 2024 at the Alberta Craft Council Discovery Gallery, Edmonton, Canada

Scroll/drift and Scroll/hang, are two pieces of linen (and linen/silk) damask where the warp has been stained with ink and indigo. Enmeshed within interlacing threads, ink stains mimic landforms and bodies of water recollecting an ephemeral, affective prairie. Pattern is recognized or perhaps remembered - a furrowed field, the long shadow beneath a snow drift or a lover’s jacket hanging from a nail.

Shelter/In plain sight recollects an ancient textile typology - the shaggy pile-woven cloak or vararfeldur woven on a warp-weighted loom. My interest in this arcane garment sprung from a chance encounter in 2023 with Michèle Hayeur Smith who has extensively researched the “grey shaggy pile-cloak” and its connection to North Atlantic cultures. An archaeologist and artist, Hayeur Smith suggests that the cloak, woven with tufts of tog - the long wool of the dual-coated Icelandic sheep - was the ideal protective garment for the early Vikings travelling across the cold North Atlantic ocean.  It was a more resilient than sheepskin and water repellant due to the pile structure and lanolin in the wool locks.[i] This type of cloak was a trade commodity and formed part of the early Icelandic economic system based on cloth currency. Vararfeldir was valued higher than the usual vaðmál- or cloth currency (vað- cloth,  mál- made to measure). In 2024, the opportunity arose to weave on a warp-weighted loom at the Icelandic Textile Centre in Blönduós, Iceland. I immediately began planning Shelter/In plain sight based on my research of Icelandic vararfeldir.

I was drawn to the history of the cloak, its unique structure and the technical aspects of weaving on a warp-weighted loom. The Icelandic version of the cloak uses a unique pile knot and handspun weft made from the þel (pronounced “thel”) of the Icelandic sheep. This is the soft undercoat which fulls easily, producing a very warm cloth. Conceptually the project grew from my interest in the materiality of wool and its connection to place. From the start it was clear that I wanted to entwine the landscapes of Treaty Seven territory and Iceland by using wool from each place. Cotswold sourced from shepherd Tara Klager in the foothills west of Mohkinstsis (Calgary) made for a strong, unbreakable warp thread. I spun the warp and prepared it in the traditional manner for weaving on a warp-weighted loom with a card-woven starting band. The pattern for this band was inspired by a 1000 year-old textile fragment found in the grave of an early Viking-Age female settler from Ketilsstaðir, Iceland.[ii] For both weft and pile, I used five Icelandic sheep fleeces in grey, black and brown sourced from Blönduós area shepherd Jóhanna Erla Pálmadóttir who also invited me to visit her family farm. The most striking thing about the visit was the familiarity of the landscape surrounding Blönduós which resembled the area where my parents currently live near Delia, Alberta.

Since the methodology for weaving on a warp-weighted loom was entirely new to me, I spent more than a week setting up the Norwegian tapestry loom so that it would weave like the old Icelandic loom. [iii] I discussed the project with Icelandic artist, weaver and textile history expert Ragnheiður Björk Þórsdóttir who had lent the loom I was using. It was fascinating to work out technical adaptations to the loom while also planning for how the cloak would look. I wanted the image or pattern woven into the cloak would somehow resonate with its history and the place it comes from. With the vararfeldur, the function of the cloth was in direct relationship to a specific landscape - making habitation in a particularly challenging place possible. Hildur Hákonardóttir speculates on the different ways a varafeldur might have been used. She writes, “It was useful for those who spent long hours outside in the cold, watching over sheep or fishing…, or aboard ships - or for those who lay in wait for the prey while hunting, …”[iv] (emphasis mine) This mimetic aspect of the cloak suggested by Hákonardóttir is very compelling. The person wearing a vararfeldur borrows the traits of an animal to survive or even disguise themselves on the land. With this in mind, I composed the pile for Shelter/In plain sight according to a pixelated photograph of Icelandic turf to mimic the landscape. The resulting organic abstraction feels somehow animal and vegetal at the same time. Shelter/In plain sight entangles cultures, histories and technologies both ancient and new. It is not necessarily a re-creation of a specific historic textile, but instead the wooly manifestation of weaving research  praxis and the material recollection of an unfamiliar landscape. I may have only spent a little time in Iceland, but somehow it also felt like home.

When I finished weaving at four in the morning, I untied the cords suspending the loom weights and cut the cloth from the loom. My first instinct was to take the vararfeldur outside. I walked to the Blanda riverbank with nearly four kilograms of shaggy wool cloth over my shoulder. I carefully laid the piece out on the rocks at the edge of the river and took a few photographs. The shaggy pile blended instantly with the rocks and moss as though it had always been a part of this landscape. There it lay, a year of combing, spinning and weaving hiding in plain sight.

[i] Michele Hayeur Smith, King Harald’s Gray Cloak: Vararfeldir and the Trade in Shaggy Pile Weave Cloaks between Iceland, Norway and the Late Viking and Early Middle Ages in Textiles of the Viking North Atlantic: Analysis, Interpretation, Re-creation, edited by Alexandra Lester Makin and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, page 53

[ii]Kevin P. Smith, Michele Hayeur Smith & Karin Margareta Frei, “"Tangled Up in Blue": The Death, Dress and Identity of an Early Viking-Age Female Settler from Ketilsstaðir, Iceland“ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333853498_Tangled_Up_in_Blue_The_Death_Dress_and_Identity_of_an_Early_Viking-Age_Female_Settler_from_Ketilsstadir_Iceland

[iii] As the loom was not a typical vertical warp-weighted loom, several adaptations were necessary to weave the traditional twill pattern. Additionally, the loom was designed to weave from the bottom up and not from the top down like the old Icelandic loom, meaning the pile not and lifting order for the heddle sticks was reversed.

[iv]Hildur Hákonardóttir, “Iceland’s Settlement and Trade in Woven Goods in The Warp Weighted Loom by Hildur Hákonardóttir, Elizabeth Johnston & Marta Kløve Juuhl, page 28 

Three handwoven Jacquard textiles in cotolin and linen. Warp is stained with sumi.

My recent handwoven cloth focuses on complex textile structures and the application of ink and dyes to warp and weft threads during the weaving process. In this work, the mimesis of land forms and bodies of water recollect an ephemeral, affective prairie.

The Milkweed damask project began in late January 2022. I am working with various species of the Milkweed plant - Asclepias incarnata, speciosa and syriaca toward producing hand-spun thread suitable for weaving. The goal is to produce enough thread of a quality suitable for damask weaving on a small scale. On the fall of 2023 I was able to collect more than 400 plant stalks and have been processing these through the winter. More images coming soon.

Dispersion is a series of knit works in which paper thread has been knit, stained with sumi and then re-knit in a different configuration to redistribute the original ink drawing in a new pattern.

Each panel measures 30 cm in diameter, mounted on a linen-wrapped frame 2.25 cm deep. Knit in 2021.

These works are available for purchase.

The form of each hand knit object is dictated by a simple set of instructions or algorithm. The most recent is knit from hand twisted day lily and lily of the valley cordage. Others are composed of linen or hemp threads and some are dyed with plant dyes. All are mounted on linen.

Knotted higa silk, hand knit, 2022

My recent Jacquard weaving generates an abstract textile lexicon in which the loom acts as a kind of automatic writing machine. Digital imagery drawn from hand knit textiles provides the visual/textual input for this recent series of woven panels. In Lexical Fragments 1 and 2, mediated knit structure appears on the surface of the cloth as both image and texture. Ink applied to threads throughout the process reveals and/or interferes with the apprehension of row upon row of calligraphic, text-like marks. The translation from knit web to mesh of pixels, to interlaced threads in satin damask enacts a mimesis of text in textile form.

The source imagery for these works was drawn from a series of mono prints created using small stones. In Mountain 1, the impression of a single stone is enlarged to fill two panels of woven cloth. In Mountain 2, the same stone is repeated partially and then interrupted. The mediated image of a single stone in these pieces acts as a kind of distilled index for the land itself, providing an object for contemplation of the natural landscape and one's place in it.

Mountain 1 & 2 are hand woven on a Jacquard loom in 2019 using randomized complex structures and silk, linen, hemp and stainless steel threads stained variably with plant dyes, ink and synthetic indigo.

Tendency, at DNA Art Space, London, Canada, Oct 7 to Nov 14, 2016

This exhibition featured the Noise, Frequency and Codex weaving series and the knit object series.

The ”Stone swatch series” began with the idea that something very small - like a handful of stones collected on a camping trip with my daughter - can act as a kind of distilled index of the land itself. Monoprints of these same stones were used as source imagery for this collection of handwoven Jacquard swatches. Each small piece of cloth is a unique tactile souvenir of a specific site, providing an object for contemplation of the natural landscape and our place in it. As a descendent of settler culture in Treaty Seven territory, I am working to navigate the legacy of my ancestors in order to better understand how I occupy territory both as a settler and a child of this land.

Cast offs was a site-specific installation of hand knitting on the grounds of the Inverness County Centre for the Arts (ICCA) for the exhibition Interlacing Conversations, August 30 to September 20, 2015 in Inverness, Nova Scotia.

The installation was composed of more than fifty hand-knit, flat wool ”drawings” of hats, socks, long underwear and mittens. Knitters in Cape Breton and Alberta have lent their hands and ingenuity to the creation of individual pieces based on a set of knitting patterns created for the project.

Thank you Emma Bass, Callie Beller, Cynthia Baughman, Rachel Bennett, Dorothy Burton, Rose Cameron, Christine Campbell, Carolyn Davis, Louise Delisle, Christine Duncan, Jennifer Duncan, Meaghan Durieux, Rui Gao, Lorna Gladman, Jasmine Heim, BJ Korson, Julia Krueger, Robyn Love, Bernadette MacLeod, Donna Merithew Lucas, Alicia Peres, Christina Pickles, Brier Reid, Claire Sherwood, Megan Slater, Janice Taylor, Elizabeth Whalley and residents at the Iverary Manor in Inverness, Nova Scotia. (If you knit pieces for this project and do not see your name here, please email info@mackenziefrere.com)

Images provided by Robyn Love, Steven Rankin and Elizabeth Whalley

Cloth is analogous to the human body. When placed in the landscape, textiles indicate human presence evoking the temporary nature of our occupancy and the fragility of the human body itself. Temporary shelter, flag, signal or marker, textiles in the landscape proffer ephemeral evidence of our attempts to occupy, communicate boundaries or quantify the natural world. As the descendant of farmers on the Canadian prairie, I feel a strong connection to a landscape, one that can feel indifferent or even hostile depending on the season. On the prairies it is the wind that carves the earth, carries the weather and creates the conditions (favourable or otherwise) that its inhabitants experience.

This video and following images documents a project titled "Air over land" installed near Delia, Alberta from January to May 2013. Three hand-knit linen tubes encased in thin wool felt were placed at the base of the Hand Hills, once the edge of a prehistoric ocean. The trio of windsocks captured the direction and force of the prairie wind. Over the course of five months they were ravaged by the wind and faded by the sun. Once the first piece was torn from its mount, the deterioration of these now fragile textile objects was arrested and conserved. Each piece has now been hand stitched to a cotton mount for exhibition.

"Air over land" is intended to capture the strength of natural phenomena and embed it in the deteriorating cloth subjected to its force. The resulting textiles are a document of exposure to the elements and provide an analog to our own vulnerable bodies in the landscape. The corresponding video documentation captures the process of deterioration enacted on the textiles by wind, snow and sun.

Time lapse documentation of "Air over land" created by Mackenzie Kelly-Frère in 2015.

Some images by Lorna Sarah.

Frequency exhibition at GalleryGallery in Kyoto Japan, Feb to Mar 2014

This exhibition featured select pieces from the Noise, Frequency and Codex weaving series.

Codex is a series of handwoven cloth panels investigating the complex interaction of measured ink pattern and randomized block patterns utilizing an ancient weave structure known as samit.

The first four images are installation shots of Codex 1 and 2 from In the making, an exhibition curated by Diana Sherlock for the Illingworth Kerr Gallery. The exhibit featured the work of: Ward Bastian, Jolie Bird, Nicole Burisch, Hyang Cho, Dean Drever, MacKenzie Kelly-Frère, Stephen Holman, Robin Lambert, Wednesday Lupypciw, Brendan McGillicuddy, Tyler Rock, Jenna Stanton, and Pavitra Wickramasinghe. DOWNLOAD EXHIBIT CATALOGUE EXCERPT

Image 1 (left to right): works by Jolie Bird, Hyang Cho, Brendan McGillicuddy, Dean Drever with Codex 1 and 2 in the foreground.

Image 3 (left to right): works by Pavitra Wickramasinghe and Ward Bastian with Codex 1 and 2 in the foreground.

Recollect 1 is comprised of a series of five handwoven panels in linen. Each is patterned in a weft kasuri technique using the natural and bleached colour of the linen along with madder. Across the five panels the vertical stripes deteriorate gradually as ties were omitted from the weft skeins as they were prepared for weaving. The first image is a detail of one of the weft skeins after ties are removed following a four week “Turkey red” process with madder.

Recollect 2 is composed of silk and hemp yarns dyed with plant dyes and stained with sumi. The piece was woven using a summer winter polychrome structure and a randomized tie-up that was changed for each day of weaving.

I produced Recollect 2 during a residency in the spring of 2011 at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon. Curator Namita Gupta Wiggers conceived a series of five, cross-disciplinary artist residencies coinciding with the exhibition Laurie Herrick: Weaving Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. The residencies were to occur within the exhibition itself, with each artist surrounded by weaving spanning Laurie Herrick’s forty-year career as a weaver, artist and educator. Pam Petrie, Christy Matson, Elizabeth Whelan, Debora Valoma and I were asked to “create works in response to Herrick’s weavings … adding a contemporary lens on how work from the past can be used to shape the future through the living craft of weaving.”

First image by MN Hutchinson following images by Matthew Miller courtesy Museum of Contemporary Craft/PNCA

(im)material beauty, master of fine arts thesis exhibition, March 1 to 12, 2005, Anna Leonowens Gallery, Nova Scotia College of Art + Design University, Halifax, Canada

Read an excerpt of my MFA thesis as published in Craft Perception & Practice in 2007.

Work produced between 1995 and 2010.