exhibition
Only 1 week left to register for my Fall cross-stitch course! All classes are taught out of my studio at City Centre Artist Lodge, which means classes are 6 students maximum. This way everyone gets plenty of one-on-one time. If you’ve been thinking about it, now is the time to sign up before spaces fill up!
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I’m so excited to be offering a 4 week course this Fall, dedicated to the art and craft of cross-stitch. Lucky for you, you’re getting first access to registration since you’re reading my blog!
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Believe it or not, I took time off in June to decompress and relax! I even spent a long weekend with my best friend in Whistler! We visited the Scandinave spa and spent the rest of our time reading, eating, and walking trails. I didn’t even bring art with me to “casually” work on.
Read More“A Closer Look” - Watch Artist Talk on YouTube
Black to Da Roots/Black Music Month Festival - May 31 - June 2
First Saturday Open Studios - June 1
“Eri Explorations” - Show ends June 16th
Westward Music Festival - June 22-23
Watch on YouTube for an engaging conversation with these talented artists as they share insights into their inspirations, creative processes, take a tour of the exhibition & answer questions from viewers like you live!
Exhibition Dates: May 22 - Jun 30
Kay Meek Arts Centre, 1700 Mathers Ave.
Artists Emily Cowan, Mallory Donen & Joanne Frewer present smaller works that invite viewers to get up close & really explore the themes & techniques of each piece. Exploring a variety of media from painting to embroidery to assemblage, these artists investigate themes of home, women's work, traditional craft & change.
The first music festival of 2024 at City Centre starts this weekend, May 31 - June 2nd!
I’ll be opening my studio for limited hours, that are subject to change.
Please check my Instagram stories/broadcast channel for the most up-to-date hours.
Friday, May 31 - 3:30-6:00pm
Saturday, June 1 - 12-5pm
Sunday, June 2 - TBC
As always, find me in Studio 211, Bay 1 upstairs, at City Centre Artist Lodge (2111 Main St).
For more information on this free event, visit the Facebook Event page.
First Saturday is a public monthly artist-run open-studio event.
Come visit artists where they work at City Centre Artist Lodge.
The following artist studios will be open:
Tracy Anne Northey - Studio # 34
Ilena Lee Cramer - Studio # 109
Elana Sigal - Studio # 110
Lukas Lundberg - Studio # 208
Stephane Savoie - Studio # 123
Mallory Donen - Studio # 211
Devorah Peterson - Studio # 221
Location: 2111 Main Street, Vancouver, BC V5T 3C6
Date: June 1, 2024
Time: 12pm-5pm
The group show ”Eri Explorations” is still on view until June 16th, featuring 13 different artists creating an interesting mix of pieces all inspired by the theme of wild “Eri” silk. The exhibit showcases small and large wall hangings, visual art pieces, 3-D work, as well as knitted and woven garments. Come see the diversity that Eri silk has to offer.
Location - Granville Island
The Silk Weaving Studio
1531 Johnston St
Vancouver, BC V6H 3R9
I’ll also be opening my studio during this ticketed music festival at City Centre Artist Lodge!
Please check my Instagram stories/broadcast channel for the most up-to-date hours.
Saturday, June 22 - 1-9pm
Sunday, June 23 - 1-9pm
Studio 211, Bay 1 upstairs, at City Centre Artist Lodge (2111 Main St).
For more information Visit website for festival day/weekend passes/tickets.
Opening Reception for “Eri Explorations” - May 2
First Saturday Open Studios - May 4th
Eastside Flea Market - May 11-12
“A Closer Look” - May 22 - June 30
West of Main Art Walk - May 25-26
Below is a detail from my project “Eri Simulation - Failure to Compute”, which was made specifically for the group show “Eri Explorations”. The show is opening tomorrow night, May 2 (6-8pm), it’ll be your first opportunity to see this piece before I’ll be sharing finished photos!
Date & Time
Thursday, May 2
6-8pm
Location - Granville Island
The Silk Weaving Studio
1531 Johnston St
Vancouver, BC V6H 3R9
The group show ”Eri Explorations” with be on view from May 2 - June 16th and will feature 13 different artists creating an interesting mix of pieces all inspired by the theme of wild “Eri” silk. The exhibit will showcase small and large wall hangings, visual art pieces, 3-D work, as well as knitted and woven garments. Come see the diversity that Eri silk has to offer.
First Saturday is a public monthly artist-run open-studio event.
Come visit artists where they work at City Centre Artist Lodge.
The following artist studios will be open:
Tracy Anne Northey - Studio # 34
Ilena Lee Cramer - Studio # 109
Elana Sigal - Studio # 110
Lukas Lundberg - Studio # 208
Stephane Savoie - Studio # 123
Mallory Donen - Studio # 211
Devorah Peterson - Studio # 221
Location: 2111 Main Street, Vancouver, BC V5T 3C6
Date: May 4th, 2024
Time: 12pm-5pm
Find me at Eastside Flea for Mothers’s day weekend, where I’ll be launching the following new products:
1. DIY Glitch X-Stitch Kits.
These kits will include everything you need to make a glitch cross-stitch like the example below!
2. Boho X-Stitch Hangings
Hand-stitched with Eri Silk yarn, small and easy to hang in any space!
3. Glitch X-Stitch Patches
These come with thread, so that you can easily stitch to any item of your choosing!
4. No Smoking Stickers (Green)
This is the third variation of my cross-stitch sticker design of a “no smoking”" symbol.
May 25-26! One weekend only! Catch Vancouver’s longest running art studio tour & sale featuring over 70 participating artists! Visit artists in their studios and at satellite locations across Vancouver’s west side neighbourhoods. Open daily 11-5pm. FREE event / all ages. Both a printed and Google interactive map are available. Download your event map, preview artists and plan your weekend at www.artistsinourmidst.com
What can you expect? From internationally recognized artists to some of the city’s emerging talent, this is a unique opportunity to explore art, engage with artists and learn the stories behind their work. From Point Grey to Main Street, and from Granville Island to 41st Avenue, there's so much to explore!
Cross-Stitch Workshop - January 20
First Saturday - January 6
2023 Year in Review - Highlights
2023 Labour Report
Learn basic cross-stitch skills & the freedom of stitching without a pattern in this meditative workshop.
The workshop will begin with an introduction to basic cross-stitch skills, techniques, and tips. Students are encouraged to stitch at their own pace and stitch whatever their heart desires! This workshop does not include a cross-stitch pattern, as it is meant to be expressive and meditative in nature.
All supplies will be provided, including: a small hoop, Aida cloth, a needle, and embroidery thread.
Saturday, January 20th
12:00-3:00pm
2111 Main Street
Studio 211
$75
First Saturday is a public monthly artist-run open-studio event.
Come visit artists where they work at City Centre Artist Lodge.
The following artist studios will be open:
Maxine Woogman - Studio # 32
Five Cat Collective - Studio # 31
Tracy Anne Northey - Studio # 34
Niki Brown - Studio # 103
Pressure Point - Studio # 108
Ilena Lee Cramer - Studio # 109
Elana Sigal - Studio # 110
Shelley Saltzman - Studio # 130
Lukas Lundberg - Studio # 208
Stephane Savoie - Studio # 123
Mallory Donen - Studio # 211
Denise Coles - Studio # 221
Paulo OConnor - Studio # 225
Devorah Peterson - Studio # 221
Zandi Dandizette - Studio # 235
Location: 2111 Main Street, Vancouver, BC V5T 3C6
Date: January 6, 2024
Time: 12pm-5pm
It’s been another whirlwind year, read on below for some of my 2023 highlights!
January
Vancouver Cityscape, first quilt project
City Centre Motor Hotel Sign
February
Womanmade: Crafting Architecture and the Mundane, first exhibition in the USA
Reel goes viral, 14 million views, 40k followers
March
Proofs of Labour, conceptual project completed for solo exhibition in April
April-May
travelled to Indiana to install my show
The Art of Slowing Down: Women’s Labour & Craft, second solo exhibition in the USA
June
First cross-stitch portrait commission
July
City Centre Neon sign
August
Vancouver Mural Festival, biggest sales weekend in history of my art career 🥰
September
Monochrome series for First Saturday group exhibition
Started selling at Slice of Life Giftshop
Returned as an artist at Pacific Arts Market
October - November
Event planning
First markets of the holiday season
Started selling at Artisan Avenue
December
CCAL Holiday Market
Make It Show Vancouver
Eastside Flea
Back to the Future: Digital Art Through Embroidery, 2022, Sunshine Coast Arts Council, Sechelt, BC
Back to the Future: Digital Art Through Embroidery
Sunshine Coast Art Crawl
Vancouver Cityscape (Work in Progress)
First Saturday at City Centre (Nov. 5, 12-5pm)
Two weeks ago I travelled to Sechelt to install my solo exhibition at the Sunshine Coast Arts Council and I’m very pleased with how the show came together. It’s my largest showing of cross-stitch work to date! Embroidery is a slow process which means it takes a long time to produce enough work to warrant an entire show all to myself. I’m so proud of this accomplishment and it has definitely inspired and motivated me to continue down this path for my practice.
System Failure Series 01-03, 2020
Here’s an excerpt from the exhibition wall text for further insight:
October 14 – November 12, 2022
Back to the Future: Digital Art Through Embroidery
The work included in this exhibition has inspired a shift in Mallory Donen’s practice, towards processes rooted in traditional craft passed down from generation of women in her family. Her art explores the intersection of digital art and embroidery. By using the distinct grid format of cross-stitching she creates connections between threads and pixels.
Donen embraces an approach to making art this is purposefully slow, emphasizing the value of time and dedication to her craft, in contrast to the fast-paced nature of digital technology. Her intention is to think purposefully about each handmade object she brings into the physical world and its potential impact.
System Failure 03, 2020, embroidery, Aida cloth, 8 x 10 inches
I’m happy to share that two pieces from my System Failure series (01 & 03) have sold! But if you’re interested in starting your own art collection, there are plenty of works still available for purchase. Or browse through the installation photos below to see what tickles your fancy!
Click through to view all available works from the exhibition.
The week after installing my show I went back to Sechelt for three full days for the Sunshine Coast Art Crawl 2022. I set up a table and sold small artworks, cards, prints, and pins! I also had a table displaying my cross-stitch portrait commissions (which I’m still booking for 2023).
The most enjoyable and rewarding aspect of the entire experience was interacting with the other artists and the people that walked through the gallery during the crawl! I love talking to people about cross-stitch, it holds a special place in mine and many people’s hearts. It always seems to bring up all sorts of nostalgia and conversations about fibre arts.
On the Saturday, I gave my artist talk for the exhibition and as I was giving the talk I was reminded of my passion and love for art. All in all, the weekend was exactly what I needed to keep me inspired and driven to keep on making more! I can’t thank the Sunshine Coast Art Council enough for their support and for allowing me to participate in the crawl.
I was also featured in a newspaper article for the Coast Reporter, see below for photo and link.
(WIP) Vancouver Cityscape, 2022, mixed textiles
During my fragmented spare time in between preparing for the show in Sechelt, I’ve still been working on my Vancouver Cityscape project, believe it or not! I finished adding the embroidery details around the yellow and green fabric squares. Then I trimmed the edges and created a border with some linen fabric. The border was done with a combination of machine and hand sewing. I also added a long colourful crochet chain inner border, which was machine sewed onto the piece.
I was a set back a few hours of labour when I tried adding some smaller crochet chains of yarn to the building sections. I had sewed about half of them on when I decided that it wasn’t working and used a seam ripper to remove them before it was too late. Considering this project is such a new process for me I’m surprised and happy that this is the only time this sort of set back has happened so far.
I had some raw edges poking through after I added the border so I added some embroidery details on the side to help cover those areas up and make it look intentional.
More photos below and more to come as I continue to working to complete this project by the end of the year!
First Saturday is a public monthly artist-run open-studio event.
Come visit artists where they work at City Centre Artist Lodge.
The following artist studios will be open:
Maxine Woogman - Studio # 32
Tracy Anne Northey - Studio # 34
Ilena Lee Cramer - Studio # 109
Elana Sigal - Studio # 110
Shelley Saltzman - Studio # 130
Lukas Lundberg - Studio # 208
Mallory Donen - Studio # 211
Denise Coles - Studio # 221
Devorah Peterson - Studio # 221
LeLe Chan - Studio # 231
Canada Council for the Arts - Research & Creation Grant
Art Hole Magazine, Issue 9, February 2021
Seeking the Periphery, Virtual Exhibition Launch, Mar 11, 6:30pm EST
Uncompressed, Group Exhibition, Rebecca Randall Bryan Art Gallery, Coastal Carolina University
Digital Carnival Z, Virtual Public Presentation, Artist Panel, May 2021
At the end of February I received some amazing news! The Canada Council for the Arts informed me that my application for a Research & Creation Grant was successful. This means that I’ll be receiving funding to complete my proposed art book project. More to come on the project later, right now is the time for celebration and reflection. This is a major milestone in any artist’s career and I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for their recognition and validation of all my hard work and determination over the past few years. It’s not always easy staying motivated to pursue an art career while at the same time maintaining a career which helps me sustain a living. But now I’m confident in saying that dreams really do come true and this is just the beginning of more milestones to come.
My focus over the last month shifted from creating to research and reading. Readings included cross-stitching techniques, the history and future of technology and the connection between technology and women. I surprised myself because this was the most I’ve read in years and it made me feel like I was back in school (but in a good way)!
Lastly, I’d like to share some news about where I’m currently showing and will be showing my art. I was recently published in a UK magazine called Art Hole: 9, for their February Issue, which can be purchased online.
This month my new cross-stitch series Remnants of the Manmade will be part of the virtual group exhibition, Seeking the Periphery at the Paul H. Cocker Gallery, Department of Architectural Science, Ryerson University in Toronto. The virtual exhibition launch will be taking place Mar 11, 6:30pm EST, via dasxhibitions.ca. and free admission tickets are available through Eventbrite.
Later this Spring 2021, my video Part 1: Introduction - What Am I? will be exhibited in the group show Uncompressed, at the Rebecca Randall Bryan Art Gallery, at Coastal Carolina University.
Along with two others artist I will also be presenting a virtual public presentation in May 2021. The Artist Panel (key words: gender, labour, surveillance) is part of the 9th Annual Digital Carnival: Z, organized by Cinevolution Media Art Society.
Glitch Series 05 - Crop_1-9.jpg, 9.5x9.5 inches, embroidery floss, Aida cloth, 2020
Over the past month, I’ve been working on a variety of projects at once. I started off by stitching together the 9 pieces from Glitch Series 05 into a “quilt”. Overall, I’m very happy with how it turned out and was surprised that everything actually ended being pretty straight/even. The most satisfying thing about quilts is when you iron all the seams, they lay flat, and line up “seamlessly”, as though they were always meant to be stitched together.
(Back View) Glitch Series 05 - Crop_1-9.jpg
Next, I stitched more loose ends I had lying around and added them to my ongoing project “Stitching Loose Ends”.
Stitching Loose Ends (progress shot), 2018-2020, embroidery floss, Aida cloth, 16 inches wide x 3 1/4 inches thick
Stitching Loose Ends (back view), 2018-2020, embroidery floss, Aida cloth, 16 inches wide x 3 1/4 inches thick
I’ve also been saving smaller odds and ends that are little less useable (for cross-stitching). But I recently had an idea to try and stitch these ends into a recycled handmade paper. I made the paper a fews years ago, while I was still at U of M and almost finished with my MFA. I’ve been experimenting with some free form stitching through the paper and the hardest part for me is the lack of control. Honestly, this doesn’t surprise me though, since I’m slightly obsessed with structure and control. The only way I can find some comfort in the process is to come up with my own rules or goals along the way. For example, I might have a goal to stitch 5x5 squares with cross-stitches. Even though I know it won’t come out like the precise grid that I’m use to stitching on with my other projects, at least I have something to work towards.
After torturing myself with free-form stitching, I couldn’t help but retreat back to my comfort zone. I started Glitch Series 06, but with a slightly different approach than the previous Glitch Series 01-05. This time I’m cross-stitching the full glitch image as a whole piece, instead of segmenting it into 9 different crops, as I usually do. The size/square count is based on the pixel dimensions of a computer screen, which is 1280x800, therefore, Glitch Series 06 will be 128x80 squares.
Glitch Series 06
(Work in progress) Glitch Series 06
At the end of the month, I pulled out a few skeins of yarn and decided to knit and add onto The Machine: Knitting Ouroboros.
I also started and completed two more hand-stitched paintings for the Paint by Numbers Series, Pattern G and Pattern H.
Pattern G (front view), 2020, acrylic, canvas, embroidery floss, 9.5 x 9.5 inches
Pattern H (front view), 2020, acrylic, canvas, embroidery floss, 9.5 x 9.5 inches
Pattern G (back view), 2020, acrylic, canvas, embroidery floss, 9.5 x 9.5 inches
Pattern H (back view), 2020, acrylic, canvas, embroidery floss, 9.5 x 9.5 inches
Last but not least, I’m currently showing two works from Glitch Series 01 as part of an online exhibition, Threaded II, Envision Art Show, running from June 1-30th. I’m also excited to share that I received an Honorable Mention, which means I’m the fourth artist featured at the beginning of the virtual exhibition. It’s a very strange time for all of us and it’s changing the way we make and view art. I’m glad that something positive has come out of this and I’m so thankful to be a part of an exhibition that showcases fibre artists from all around the world. Please take time to view the work at the link above (title of the show), there is some really amazing work to see and you don’t even need to leave your bed see it!
This is the last week to check out my solo exhibition at the Reach Gallery in Abbotsford (ends January 6, 2018). I’m sad to be taking it down on the weekend, but I’m looking forward to new projects and future exhibitions in the coming year. Below are documentation photos of the exhibition.
I powered through my cross-stitched portrait of Judy Chicago this past month. Now that I have a series of three completed for my artist portraits, I’m excited to submit these for exhibition. I’ll be taking a break from the portraits to work on Glitch Series 03 which is also coming along nicely (stay tuned).
Save the date! My friends and I from We Are Pie Art Collective will be hosting an art market on Friday, February 8, from 5pm-8pm, at Art to Dine For, a fundraising event for the Abbotsford Art Council. Tickets for the event are $35, there will also be a Silent Auction, Mucho Burrito Bar and live music! Art to Dine For will take place at Highstreet Shopping Centre in Abbotsford, follow this link to purchase tickets ahead of time: www.abbotsfordartscouncil.com
