Alberta Heritage Quilt Project to visit the Peace River Museum

This coming Monday Peace River and area residents have the opportunity to have their historic quilts documented.

Lucie Heins, Assistant Curator at the Royal Alberta Museum, is visiting the Peace River Museum on Monday, May 27th to document heritage quilts from our area for an online database and share her expertise in this area. She is inviting the public to bring in quilts that are pre-1970 and were made in Alberta or brought to Alberta by immigrants.

Lucie will be documenting these quilts between 1 and 4:30 pm with individuals needing to call in advance to book an appointment. Spots are already filling up so please call soon to book at time. Individuals bringing in quilts are asked to also bring in as much information as they can on the quilter and the story of the quilt. The Museum has hosted two quilting exhibits, one in 2008 and 2010 and we know there are so many beautiful quilts in our area! We hope many will take advantage of Lucie's visit to Peace River and to document our history through textiles.

The same evening, Lucie will be speaking on "Quilts and the Settlement of Canada" between 7 and 8 pm at the Museum. This event is free and open to the public. Quilters and textile artists of all levels as well as history buffs will enjoy Lucie's presentation.

Culture Trail

This past Saturday, May 11th, the Museum played both host and participant for the Culture Trail. This idea came about from the ever popular Garden tours that can be found in so many cities and towns. If it can be done for flowers and trees, then it can be done for arts, heritage and culture!

The group started out at our Museum to enjoy a frosty moccachino while admiring the art on the walls and in the cases. The Museum currently has up "A Retrospective of Art in the Peace."This exhibit brings together the work of 47 different artists who have been a part of, are currently a part of, or have inspired others in Peace of Art, formerly the Peace River Art Club.

From the Museum, we hopped in our cars and headed over to Claire's House of Frames, where Claire was on hand to tour us through her space and explain the art on her walls. As a treat, she even brought out some pieces from the back workshop that are waiting to be matted or framed, including some done by her mother.

Next stop on our tour was the Peace River Municipal Library, where we enjoyed juice and coffee and toured the Art Gallery which currently features the pottery of Trudy Plaizier and the woodturning of Mark Ladd.

From there, we headed up Shaftesbury Trail, with a quick stop at Mackenzie Cairn to enjoy the scenery and celebrate the fact that he departed from that spot 220 years ago. After the short historic stop, we continued on to Berwyn 50th Ave Workshop, where Sharon Doucet had 3 of her students working on their respective pieces. As we browsed Sharon's display pieces and watched the students working, we enjoyed chocolate cake and raspberry squares.

 

 

 

 

Our final stop saw us in Grimshaw, at Peggy's Smith gallery, Stroke of Genius, where Peggy has stocked the shelves with the artistic genius of many local artists. Peggy also explained her own airbrush painting style while the group enjoyed punch, brownies and cream puffs.

The Museum would like to thank all those that hosted our group with stories, artistic tidbits, and tasty treats as well as those that experienced art and culture with us!

Keep your ears open and check back here to see when our next Culture Trail will be.