200 Cushions

-

The Cushion Project: Barachois Historic Church_

Grand Barachois, New Brunswick,
By Emmy Maten


The Exhibition


In the little coastal town of Grand Barachois in the Beaubassin-est community of eastern New Brunswick stands the Barachois Historic Church, one of the last remaining wooden Acadian buildings. The Barachois Historic Church Preservation Committee was considering how to commemorate its bicentennial anniversary, and a photo taken from the second floor looking down on the pews below prompted an idea: create work-of-art cushions.

A call went out to rug-hooking artisans to create hooked cushions to be exhibited for the 6th edition of the World Acadian Congress, and then to permanently adorn the church pews.
Over the past two years, 242 cushions arrived, 223 from Canada including each of the provinces and Territories, 16 from the United States, 2 from the United Kingdom, and 1 from United Arab Emirates (Ti’s). The youngest artist was 14 years old and the eldest 90. One Nunavut artist’s cushion was a first-time hooking project.

200 Cushions Exhibit Catalogue

August 18, 2019 marked the opening of the 200 Cushions for my 200th exhibition. Five members of our Guild were amongst the 120 contributing artists who attended this wonderful, heart-warming, and unifying event. The first 90-minute period of the vernissage was limited to the artists, their guests and the organizing volunteers and provided time to view the cushion collection, exchange with others, and pose for official pictures. Then the doors were opened to the public, the church quickly filled to capacity and Rémi Lévesque, the project’s creator, gave a touching interactive PowerPoint presentation to introduce the project to all those present. 1,005 visitors came to view the exhibit on opening day!

Left to right: Dawna, Emmy, Candace, Claire, Ti.


Some words from Rémi Lévesque:
“…The collection… lives up to the volunteers’ community spirit and helping others, their creativity, and their energy to work towards a common goal. …Everyone had a reason to embark. That’s what created magic. Many artists paid tribute to their ancestors, a family member, Acadian friends, a colleague hooker, history, the art of hooking or just for the cause.”

The cushions have since travelled to Charlottetown for a showing from September 10 to 14, then returned home to the pews of the Barachois church.

An application was sent to the Guinness World Book of records, so that is a wait-and-see. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

It is an honour to have been part of this creative project.


Kitt's cushion on the far left

From left to right: Claire's, Candace's, Manon's, Emmy's.

Dawna's cushion
Ti's cushion

See also: 

 Facebook - Eglise historique de Barachois 

Francopresse - Mission accomplie pour Rémi Lévesque

The Barachois Hooked Cushion Collection

Popular posts from this blog

Show & Tell / Sally Perodeau

-
Image
In Memory of Sally Perodeau (October 10, 1933 to October 3, 2024) Respectfully submitted by Emmy Maten Sally Perodeau (1933-2024) We are saddened by the recent passing of one of our founding members, Sally Perodeau. In 1978, she joined the Guild which was just three years in existence at the time. Sally was keen to learn how to rug hook after being inspired by seeing a friend’s rug. She became a skilled rug hooker and made many fine and beautiful rugs, usually using narrow cuts of wool which allows more precision and detail. Sally was a wonderful organizer and was generous with her time and energy. She was the Guild President twice, from 1984-86 and again from 1997-98 and remained an active member until about 7 years ago. Our Guild member Jacqueline Bouchard helped Sally with her garden and has memories to share. “My precious memories of Sally are her culture, great family values and her love for beauty. Her garden was especially a source of joy to her every day, through the window whe...
Read more

Show & Tell / Nancy Thompson

-
Image
In memory of Nancy (Farnam) Thompson (1947 - 2024)  Respectfully submitted by Emmy Maten Nancy Thompson (1947-2024) The guild was saddened to learn of the recent loss of Nancy Thompson, member of our guild since the early 2000’s. Our guild member Cathy was a good sailing friend of Nancy’s and introduced Nancy to rug hooking and the Beaconsfield guild. Judith became her rug hooking teacher and helped her with most of her rugs. Nancy is remembered as generous, caring, giving, discreet, upbeat and happy. She had a good sense of humour. From 2019 to 2022, Nancy was an excellent secretary for the Beaconsfield Guild. Yet she preferred rug hooking to naming and dating her rugs; In her daughter Katie’s words “she would tell you that the rugs were finished long after they were started”. Katie continues “She loved rug hooking and the camaraderie of your group; I know she missed it when she became sick.” Judith reflects “Nancy was a dear friend - she had a great sense of humour and was the sa...
Read more

St Valentine

-
Image
February 12, 2024. Red Day Valentine’s Day - a day to celebrate love of all kinds! For us today, we celebrated the love of our craft and our community, and we each wore something red to prove it. Our Sell and Swap sale drew in some members we had not seen for a while, which is always a treat, as friendships grow deep over the years. Standing: Brenda, Judith, Claire, Kitt. Sitting: Denise, Karen, Harold. Hearts and Chocolate! Liz chooses this hoop at our Sell and Swap sale. Jacques, Gaétan, Mayumi, and Isabelle.    Sue, Joanne, Ann, and Helen. Jacqueline is one of the lucky door prize winners!
Read more

Rug Hooking Designs

-
Image
Shelly Atkinson  is a self-taught visual artist and crafter from Nova-Scotia, Canada. She loves experimenting with styles, colours, textures and techniques in her paintings and illustrations. Shelly offers rug hooking patterns of animals, flowers, people, the four seasons, etc. She can create custom drawings of your pet or family and even revise her patterns, if requested. Her work can be found on greeting cards, journals, prints, rug hooking patterns, coasters. needlepoint patterns, calendars, posters, and a child's book. Go to  http://users.eastlink.ca/~shellyatkinson/rughooking/rughooking.html http://shellyatkinson.blogspot.ca/ Music Is Good For The Soul A Good Book Dog & 2 Birds Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe
Read more

Marianick & Gaétan / In The News

-
Image
Jeu de mémoire / Exhibition     Marianick Viatour and Gaétan Berthiaume are visual artists specialising in wood sculpture. They joined our Beaconsfield Hooking Crafters Guild in September 2023, after having visited our rug exhibition in April 2023. They are having a vernissage and exhibition in Gatineau from Wednesday, January 31 through March 28. 12 sculptures will be presented, including one hooked piece, along with a short film of 28 minutes. Wonderful news! Congratulations! For more information, follow this link: Jeu de mémoire  (In French) Picture source: Viatour-Berthiaume Info-letter (with the artists permission).
Read more