Sandra Brownlee @ David Kaye Gallery 1

Sandra Brownlee exhibition photo; Photo credit © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Sandra Brownlee's exhibition The Word Made Physical: drawing, writing, weaving, stitching at David Kaye Gallery in Toronto is up until Sunday May 25. The show is a mix of the textile work for which she is renowned, and newer mixed media work. It's the textile work that draws me in.

Sandra Brownlee exhibition photo; Photo credit © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Sandra shipped her actual (homosote) studio wall from Nova Scotia to Toronto. It's the large piece on the left in the above image.

Sandra Brownlee exhibition photo; Photo credit © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Above are framed tactile notebook "pages" excised from a larger book (left) and hand-stitched text (right).

Sandra Brownlee exhibition photo; Photo credit © Karen Thiessen, 2014

These pieces exemplify the title of this show and Brownlee's kinaesthetic nature: they are words made physical, words deeply felt in Brownlee's body as she slowly couched the words onto cloth. Couching the words is a lot more work than embroidering them with a back-stitch or chain-stitch. Brownlee is truly committed to a slow and painstaking process of internalizing her chosen words.  The textiles on the outer edges are new. I wrote about the middle two textiles here and here. The small rust-coloured textile on the far left and Morning Ritual in the image below are evidence of Brownlee's time with India Flint.

Sandra Brownlee textile; Photo credit © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Does the "C" stand for coffee or candle? I guess that "Q" is for quiet, "P" is for plump, and "R" is for ritual.

Sandra Brownlee textile; Photo credit © Karen Thiessen, 2014

If you were to commit to slowly stitching a text, what would you choose? As I spent time with this Ratnaguna text, I wondered what text I would want to deeply internalize.