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ARTIST NAME: Costuros, Carla
ACCESSION NUMBER: 1992.081.001
TITLE: CANCELINA'S MAGIC, CANCELINA'S TRUTH
DATE: 1991
CATEGORY: Fibre
MEDIUM: handmade silk paper, indigo, cochineal, gold leaf, gold thread
DIMENSIONS: Actual: 94 x 99 x 2 cm (37 x 39 x 13/16 in.)
COLLECTION: Alberta Foundation for the Arts


OTHER HOLDINGS: Costuros, Carla
ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: Edmonton-born textile/fibre artist and book-maker Carla Costuros uses her art to explore the historical experiences of women, both their oppression and their artistic excellence as achieved through craft industry. Costuros studied Interior Design at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture (1971 – 1972) before earning her B.Ed. in Art at the University of Alberta (1976). She continued her education through study tours in Mexico and Guatemala (1975) and Peru (1979, 1983), and courses at the Banff School of Fine Arts (1976, 1978, 1981, 1985). She also taught at a range of institutions including the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Extension (1973) and Grant MacEwan Community College, where she served as Visual Art Programme Chair (1988 – 1990) and Fibre Programme Chair (1991 – 1993). Costuros joined the Edmonton artist collective Subversive Textiles following the closure of Grant MacEwan’s fibre art programme (1993); her goal was to “subvert the notion of what textiles can and can’t be” through the exhibition she organised called Paperspeak. Fibre workers throughout the ages, she said, tended to be women at home workshops whose products were baskets, quilts, and clothing; sexism denied the craft its due credit, but its history reveals women’s economic, cultural, and social lives. The fabric “Mary’s Daughters” (1990) is photo-screened dye and pigment with resist supported by linen and silk, featuring quotations by Mary Astell and Mary Wollstonecraft advocating gender equality. Costuros created it to respond to the 1989 Montreal Massacre. “Cancelina’s Magic” from the series Cancelina’s Truth (1991) is a row of book spines constructed from indigo-dyed, gold-leafed, handmade archival woven paper; several are emblazoned with titles in Spanish. The work is a tribute to Cancelina, a weaver Costuros met in Peru whose work she found “technically complex and extremely beautiful.” Costuros’s work has appeared in almost two dozen group and joint exhibitions in Edmonton, Banff, Montreal, and Cambridge, Ontario. Numerous collections house Costuros’s work, including those of the City of Edmonton, the Red Deer Arts Centre, and the Federal and Intergovernmental Affairs Agent General’s Residence in Hong Kong.


Freedom to Create. Spirit to Achieve. 
 

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