{"id":20102,"date":"2018-03-14T15:23:35","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T19:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20102"},"modified":"2018-03-14T15:23:35","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T19:23:35","slug":"artists-are-hooked-on-tradition-at-cultural-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/artists-are-hooked-on-tradition-at-cultural-centre\/","title":{"rendered":"Artists are \u201cHooked\u201d on tradition at Cultural Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

You might have a few examples hanging around your house, pieces you made with a latch hook and a few pieces of yarn.
\nThey\u2019re rugs, sure, but have you ever truly appreciated them as art?
\nClare Bolton, a curator at the Aurora Cultural Centre, guesses that answer is probably not. But, if she has her way, that is about to change with Hooked on Tradition, a new exhibition at the Centre curated by members of the Newmarket Rug Hooking Guild.
\nHooked on Tradition, a first exhibition for the Guild as a group, is on now, and runs through April 28, and is designed to give art lovers a fresh take on an age-old pastime.
\n\u201cI want people to appreciate rug making as an art form because there is a mentality out there that you can get a kit and anyone can hook a rug, and it is quite minimized,\u201d says Ms. Bolton. \u2018Traditionally, women\u2019s art forms have been minimized, so I want people to appreciate the art, understand that some people have actually created the pattern, done the shading with their yarn, these are people who take rug hooking up to a whole new level.\u201d
\nMembers of the Guild were at the Cultural Centre on Thursday morning, hard at work finding just the right places for each rug, art pieces which span over a century of creativity, ahead of the exhibition\u2019s launch on March 10.
\nMembers of the Newmarket Rug Hooking Guild have been meeting since the 1960s and, over the years, a true sense of community has developed within the Guild, which is largely populated by women.
\nBea Grant, for instance, has been a member of the Guild since 1969.
\nAs a 25-year-old mother of three young girls, \u201cI just had to get out of the house!\u201d she says.
\nHer first introduction to rug hooking was at the Guild of All Arts on the Scarborough Bluffs and, after job posting with her family in St. Louis, where primitive art was all the rage, she brought the technique back to Canada.
\n\u201cI started out trying to look realistic, but when I got to St. Louis, they were doing some really rough, ragged stuff,\u201d says Ms. Grant. \u201cThey really wanted authentic-looking rugs, so I switched my style. When I came back to Canada, I got a teaching certificate, specialized in Canadian primitive, but it is not everyone\u2019s cup of tea.\u201d
\nGuild member Lois Hayes, on the other hand, first tried her hand at textiles 20 years ago, giving it up for a little while, and picking it back up again in earnest after retiring a couple of years ago.
\n\u201cI love it because it is textiles, it is recycling material, and it is working with a circle of very supportive women,\u201d says Lois. \u201cEven if we don\u2019t all have the save views in the end, once you start hearing about all the different techniques, styles and methods, you learn about your community and really your whole country.\u201d
\nBell pulls, on the other hand, were Marilyn\u2019s Bellamy\u2019s first introduction to rug making. Think those long bits of fabric dangling from the ceiling Maggie Smith used to pull in Downton Abbey to summon the servants.
\n\u201cI sae the bell pulls in 1983 and I had no idea what they were, so I asked how you learned and where to go,\u201d she recalls. \u201cFrom there on in, I have done nothing but fine shading. I had two boys in the house and I had to get out and be with some ladies.\u201d
\nYou might be sensing a theme here, but Ms. Grant says rug hooking \u2013 even in the Newmarket Rug Hooking Guild \u2013 is an art form that has, so far, attracted kids as young as six and adults of all genders all the way up to\u2026 well, however long they can hold a hook.
\n\u201cJust like quilting reached its zenith in popularity about 20 years ago and has become a truly acknowledged art form, rug hooking is on the verge of that right now, we think,\u201d says Ms. Grant.
\nIf you want to be on the vanguard of the rug renaissance, head over to the Aurora Cultural Centre for the exhibition. Guild members invite you to come out and experience traditional rug hooking for yourself on Wednesday, April 18, from 6 \u2013 7.30 p.m.
\nThe exhibition\u2019s formal opening reception will take place at the Aurora Cultural Centre next Friday, March 23, from 6 \u2013 8 p.m.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You might have a few examples hanging around your house, pieces you made with a latch hook and a few pieces of yarn.
\nThey\u2019re rugs, sure, but have you ever truly appreciated them as art?
\nClare Bolton, a curator at the Aurora Cultural Centre, guesses that answer is probably not. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-15-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5ee","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-10 13:03:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}