An exhibition called Out of the Woods has just opened at FibreWorks Studio & Gallery in Pender Harbour, and the show could not be more appropriately titled.
Two master artists – wood turner Bob (Plumb Bob) James and weaver Jessica Silvey – have put together a show that hits you visually with an array of organic artworks along with a waft of wood-scent as soon as you walk into the gallery’s unique yurt building.
Silvey’s cedar baskets, hats, and wool weaving are displayed along with James’s beautifully turned burl bowls and platters in yellow cedar, arbutus, and other local wood varieties. Their creations seem all the more impressive when you learn that both artists are self-taught.
“I searched and searched for somebody to teach me and didn’t find anyone, so it was all trial and error and just teaching myself,” Silvey said in an interview at the show’s opening reception May 18. “And as my kids grew, we just went to museums and galleries and looked at those baskets and mats and blankets.”
James started turning wood on a lathe he imported from England more than 40 years ago, on which he made spindles and posts for buildings, beds, and staircases. But right from the beginning, he was turning bowls, too.
“I had to learn it myself and from the odd book,” he said.
Of the many beautiful objects James has brought to the show, one of the most fascinating is a funeral urn. It’s made from a solid block of wood about 45 cm (18 inches) tall and about 20 centimetres (eight inches) wide at the shoulder. James has painstakingly dug into the block and hollowed it out through a mere 2.5 cm (one-inch) hole in the top.
“I have little hook tools I use in there, and just keep doing it. It takes me a day to empty it out,” said James. “The body of the urn ends up an eighth-of-an-inch thick all the way around.”
Silvey, who has raised her family in Sechelt, grew up in Egmont, where her grandmother’s home was filled with woven Coast Salish cedar baskets made by women in her family. “The baskets had the most beautiful patina. I just loved to look at them, the patterns and the shapes, and that gloss,” she said.
Silvey is also showing some of her traditional wool weaving at the show.
“About 10 years after I started cedar weaving, I started with the blankets, weaving on a Salish floor loom. Now I just switch back and forth between them both, depending on what I want to make or on a commissioned piece.”
This time of year, if she’s not conducting workshops on the Coast, at the University of British Columbia or as far away as University of Waterloo in Ontario, Silvey is out, ritually stripping bark off cedar trees, which must be done during these few weeks before summer. “It’s the only time the bark is going to come off the tree, when the sap is running. Otherwise it’s just stuck on there like glue.”
FibreWorks Studio & Gallery has closed for one week of renovations but opens again Wednesday, May 29. There will still be plenty of time to see the Out of the Woods show, which runs until June 23.
