Julie McIntyre
Mixed Media | Printmaking
Travels with my Grandmother at Main Street Chiropractic, with a sneak peak at Hazel & Co., was inspired by a box of exquisite travel photographs I inherited. They were taken by my paternal grandmother, Lucy Mood MacLeod McIntyre (1906 - 2005) during her world travels on cargo ships in the 1960s and 70s. My grandmother was a “Southern Belle” who grew up in South Carolina and found herself for most of her life, a widow with three boys in snowbound Canada. Everything she touched, be it table settings, cooking, baking, gardening, dress-making, photography or porcelain work, she did with the care and flare of a true multi-media artist.
I believe her work deserves to be seen in galleries so I sorted hundreds of her travel slides according to themes from sacred structures to street scenes. I hand-printed her photographic images, then using the full-length, bibbed “Grandma Apron”as the template,sewed them into uniforms my grandmother could have proudly worn. Why aprons? Aprons are still among the most recognizable icons of women’s lives, symbolizing not only home and motherhood, but our profound social ambivalence about our expectations of mothers to the degree that apron strings tie unwilling women to the home and restless children to binding relationships.
Viewers are welcome to pull out restored photographs from the many apron pockets, since the lithographic printing process on mulberry paper gave a lovely, but “aged” quality to her images. Originally exhibited as Sewn Stories at Evergreen Cultural Centre, Coquitlam, (May 9 - July 5, 2008), these aprons were accompanied by Bedtime Stories, a series of crib-sized quilts and artist book that explores my changing relationships as a new mother. Hung at eye level, the aprons both suggest the human outline and the ghost of the human form while playing with the idea of wearing one‘s experience, as well as hiding behind it.
This past year, I have been creating companion 24” squared quilts with the remaining prints and a delicious pile of wallpaper that reminds me of the fabrics my grandmother wore and used in her home. Yes, I am trying to find my way back to the comfort of grandmother’s house. My grandmother and I shared a passion for artmaking, recording history, cherishing memories and the perspective that voyages inspire. The creative process also provides a path to remember, restore and rebel against the elder artist’s advanced Alzheimer’s condition which robbed her of everything except her physical being for the final twenty years of her breath. This disease may also have to be accepted as part of my inheritance and thereby, a sense of poignant irony and urgency in the project naturally prevails. It is hoped that through the process of completing "Travels", much may be recovered.
Julie McIntyre studied at the Banff Centre, Alberta in 1986 and received her BFA from Queen's University with a major in printmaking. She has had solo shows in 18 public galleries in Canada and participated in well over 40 juried exhibitions, including 21 international credits to date. Julie is President of CARFAC BC.
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