in the gallery
My Detroit
An exploration: textile interpretations of iconic Windsor/Detroit architecture and landscapes
Closing Reception. Thursday, June 5th, 5pm until 7pm
Lisa Sylvestre. My Detroit: An exploration through textiles.
Windsor/Detroit: beautiful, exploitive, highly industrialised, complex. The stark realities of oppression and massive environmental degradation are obvious but beauty, richness, humanity, and the vibrancy of the region run deep.
In several pieces, My Detroit re-imagines the grit, the decaying structures, disruptive roadways, and natural landscapes through texture and colour, through light and shadow. Some of the most elaborate examples of architecture in the world are reconceived through cloth and stitch, through natural dyes and texture.
The duster coats explore the rampant wealth that began to characterize the Windsor/Detroit region over a century ago. Unbridled prosperity, derived from human and environmental exploitation, was celebrated through the construction of elaborate and costly architecture.
The Guardian and Book Tower pieces imagine that there are lighter ways to tread. Soft cotton, linen and wool which have been dyed by hand from natural and in some cases locally sourced plant material cannot, of course, provide the raw materials for towering buildings, but they can and do provide warmth and protection, and beauty.
*The two coats which are a part of My Detroit were made using the Lichen Duster pattern, developed, and produced by Sew Liberated, a small and independent pattern design company.
Jodi Green, Looking Across, Looking Inward #s 1 and 2. 2009
The print series Looking Across, Looking Inward is a quiet exploration of the feeling of disjointedness of living in a border city whose landscape and culture is dominated by a larger city separated from us by politics and geography. Fireworks scatter over a shared river; light from buildings in the United States penetrates window blinds to enter bedrooms in Canada. Below, a map of residential streets on the near side, above, a gritty tracery of buildings on the far side, and between them, the landscape that connects and divides us: soil, roots, water.
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in the shop
asil brings together local artists
Benjamin Lesperance is an artist, painter, maker, and woodworker. @woolwoodshop
Jodi Green is a printmaker, bookbinder, and arts educator living and working in the Walkerville neighbourhood of Windsor, On. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in printmaking in 2008 at the University of Georgia, and from 2015 to 2020 operated Windsor's only public access printmaking studio. Levigator Press journals and sketchbooks are bound entirely by hand using traditional tools and methods. They feature a blend of reclaimed and new materials with a focus on sustainable practices and minimizing waste. Cover papers are printed by hand or recycled from fine art prints made in our studio. @levigatorpress
Lisa Sylvestre is a Windsor/Detroit based artist. An academic background in the social sciences, community-learned quilting, and formal training in tailoring and photography all contribute to her work as a multi-media artist, with a primary focus on textiles. Lisa, operating under asil, runs a textile + a dye studio which holds classes and hosts a bi-monthly community sewing circle, and curates the asil Gallery and Shop which brings together talented local artists. linktree
SpillyJane aka Jane Dupuis was educated as a Classicist and Librarian before pursuing the creative arts. She works in knitting, crochet, sewing, and printmaking in Walkerville, where she lives with her avian familiar. @spillyjaneknits @spillyjane