Nancy Crites, Calgary 

 My piece is designed in response to the current environmental crisis and global warming. It is hooked using blue up-cycled silk as the background with a single fault line of golden thread running through it. The use of golden thread is based on the Japanese practice of Kintsugi, repairing something precious, delicate and fragile with gold. Our earth needs mending, and as an artisan, I am interested in beauty in its simplest forms and Kintsugi is a beautiful practice of repairing something precious with gold.

My mat reflects how we need to take time to mend our precious earth with love and then move forward nurturing and honouring the delicate nature of our planet. Nancy Crites was born in Toronto, Ontario and raised on the prairies of western Canada where she fell in love with the seemingly endless expanses of land in the prairies, and the cycles of life made visible by the changing seasons of the prairies. Her artistic studies began in 1970 at the University of Alberta where she focused on textile arts, particularly weaving and moved into adding natural and found materials into her work. Crites spent many summers at the University of Saskatchewan’s Kenderdine Campus at Emma Lake, Saskatchewan and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity where she gained an appreciation and respect for the beauty and fragility of natural settings. Crites’ work is currently focused on contemporary rug hooking, incorporating up-cycled materials, unique designs, and concepts to the time-honoured traditional rug hooking techniques. Nancy has worked with numerous renowned artists and has artwork in public and private collections. Over the past 30 years, she has exhibited in various Canadian venues. She has received numerous art grants as well as juried awards. In her full-time studio practice, Crites creates rugs based on the environment, memories, and mysteries of life.