April 2–May 8, 2022
Amber Friedman and Erin Cobham
‘Staking Ground’ is an invitation to step into a space with artifacts from a way of living that circles around community, connection, ritual, respect, and love. These works of art embody a liminal space that celebrates a return to a simple life, a magical life, and a mystical way of being.
Some of the art pieces in the show are fabric prayer flags with embroidery, hand woven vessels and baskets, fabric money with embroidered symbols, and batik paintings. All of these pieces were dreamed of and created by settlers who long for a world where children are raised together, food is grown together, and ceremony space is as common as spring blossoms and autumn leaves.
Like a wish on the wind, ‘Staking Ground’ whispers that a post-apocalyptic world can be beautiful, and that beauty itself is a worthy endeavour. We invite you to put down those things that you are carrying, elease those dams that you have built around your life, and let the river of beauty flow through you.
Amber Friedman
Amber Friedman is a textile artist, who lives with her family in the qathet region of BC following a lifetime of travel and creativity, beginning with her first camera at five years old. She taught herself how to sew and dye fabric at 10 years old, using up all her mother’s white sheets to do so. Currently, Friedman is exploring direct application of Indigo and foraging for local medicinal plant colours. She is using botanical dyes exclusively for all her paintings and clothing.
Friedman attended the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design in Fredericton, studying textiles from WhiteFeather, Harriet Taylor and Janice Wright Cheney. During the four-year program, Friedman also participated in multiple group exhibitions, co-created emerging art boutiques and taught arts-based workshops alongside recognized artists in the community. While living on the west coast she has studied printing with natural dyes at Maiwa, been an active member of the Malaspina Arts Society and a founding member of the Annual eCouture Wearable Art Fashion Show. Friedman is currently making art from her new studio in Powell River, BC for an upcoming Exhibit she has in the Spring of 2022 at FibreWorks Gallery in Maidera Park, the artwork is an exploration of money and staking ground.
Amber teaches botanical dye workshops and does art residencies at Art Centres and Community Buildings in the Powell River Area, the lower Sunshine Coast and the Gulf Islands.
Erin Cobham
“I grew up on the St. John River in Mactaquac, New Brunswick. In a lush natural setting with the river in front of me and kilometres of trees behind me. I played in the woods and the water as a child and am in awe of the beauty of the natural world. My family has always encouraged my artistic urges. My grandmother was my most precious inspiration, for all things handmade. Not to mention grown and cooked. As a child my grandmother taught me how to knit and didn’t get mad when I used her scraps of yarn to make elaborate spider webs that overtook the entire living room. I will always remember what it felt like to sit under my grandmother’s antique quilt frame as her and my aunts sat around it and stitched her quilts.
My years at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design allowed me to hone in on what it was that I really loved to do. I had always felt “artistic” but when I got into the textiles studio I felt like I was home. The processes took me back to a time when everything we used was made with care and special space or equipment was not really necessary. I can stitch, knit or coil at my own pace….in my own space. Now I can be found patiently coiling my way to a basket or stitching words and pictures onto pieces of cotton to commemorate and represent.
Now, as an adult with a family of my own, I once again find myself in a natural landscape. Fields, forest, streams and trails are where I make my home. Ancient pines surround me and nature inspires me, as I know it will never let me down. In the end Nature will be here to pick up the pieces.”