Six large-scale vinyl banners, each with a full colour photograph depicting hand-made blankets in various locations and conditions.

Platforms: The Teachers Among Us invited emerging and mid-career artists to nominate senior artists who have mentored, taught, or profoundly influenced their artistic journey. Following a citywide nomination and adjudication process, 20 senior artists were selected to create new works to be showcases across civic art platforms. These pieces reflect the importance of mentorship and the intergenerational relationships that helped shape Vancouver’s vibrant art scene.

The banners and zine that make up the work Blanketing are reflections on an abundance of textile hand work. There is intention and creativity in both the creating and maintenance of blankets (quilts, comforters, duvets, throws, crib blankets, and more). As objects with organic and inorganic components, blankets lead active lives, warming bodies and then carrying evidence of those lives in their shape, smells, stains, mends, and eventually discarded fibers. The six banners show blankets that are part of the creative legacy of my mother, who passed last year, my late grandmothers, and other unknown makers. I have mended and transformed them into clothing. In every banner there is a silhouette drawing of a bed with stacked blankets. It is also on the cover of the zine Blanketing that is available in the VPL Zine collection near the entrance to the library (level 2). The six images are set in the rural Pacific Northwest. They were photographed by Carl Wiebe and me on Malcolm Island, in the traditional Kwakwaka'wakw territories of the 'Namgis, Mamalilikala, and Kwakuitl Nations.