Blog

On September 21 the second half of Archipelago opened at the San Juan Islands Museum of Art. This is a cultural exchange between the southern gulf islands and the San Juan islands. This rendition of Archipelago features work by 6 artists from the southern gulf islands: Temoseng Chazz Elliott, Anna Gustafson, Jane Kidd, John MacDonald, Sam Montalbetti and me.

Carving, painting, photography, sculpture, tapestry and weaving.

The art museum is a beautiful gallery and our work looks stunning there. What a wonderful collaboration.

Many thanks to the San Juan Islands Art Museum and the Salt Spring Arts Council for co-ordinating this event.

To hear me talking to Margaret Gallagher of North by Northwest about The Chorus, my morse code weavings, follow this link:

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-43-north-by-northwest/clip/15968700-weaver-joanna-rodgers-exhibit-the-chorus.

My solo show of morse code weavings, The Chorus, is installed in the gallery at the Craft Council of BC on Granville Island in Vancouver. The show is running until April 20, 2023.

Many thanks to CCBC for this amazing opportunity to show my work in their beautiful gallery.

I'm dying the warps and pattern weft for my next morse code weaving with plants from my garden. So much to discover and I'm loving the results.

Before: mordanted mercerized cotton ready to be dyed.

After: these have been dyed with two kinds of Saint John's Wort (hypericum perforatum and hypericum frondosum), carrot tops, bracken, blackberry leaves and stems and Japanese maple leaves.

I didn't document the scouring, mordanting and dying of the warps and wefts for this weaving, nor the measuring out. However, I did photograph each step involved in setting up my loom for weaving. It takes longer to prepare a piece for weaving than it does to weave it. I love this. The slowness and the importance of each step. Lots of time to engage with the piece at every step of the way.

Threading the warps through the reed. Here I have to be careful to get the colour combinations correct.

Threading each warp through the appropriate heddle. This creates the pattern.

Winding the warp onto the back beam. This must be done carefully to maintain the correct tension.

The weaving begins.

The summer art show at the Port Alberni Museum is a group show featuring artsits from southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. 

We took a little road trip over to Port Alberni to visit this show, the town and the surrounding area. Beautiful show, interesting museum, friendly town and stunning scenery. Port Alberni is well worth a visit next time you're driving out in that direction.

I have two hand dyed layered silk pieces in the show. They are from my Museum series and are Erato. Love Poetry and Euterpe. Lyric Poetry.

Here are some photos of the show.

I was thrilled and honoured to be chosen as one of 52 finalists for the Salt Spring National Art Prize 2021. 

52 pieces were selected by a panel of 4 jurors out of almost 3,000 submissions from artists all across Canada.

The SSNAP 2021 Finalists Show is up and open at Mahon Hall in Ganges on Salt Spring Island, BC. The show runs until October 25, 2021.

I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Opening Gala on Friday September 24. It was a lovely event. Covid restrictions made this even more precious. The show is stunning - beautifully hung - and each and every art work is worthy of a lengthy investigation. None disappoint.

Here is an image of the piece of mine in this amazing show...

Save Our Souls| 72″ x 18″ | Handwoven, hand-dyed mercerized cotton

I used a traditional Summer and Winter block pattern to weave the message “Save Our Souls” in morse code. I dyed the warp and weft threads with natural dyes (madder, cochineal, brazilwood, logwood, chestnut, pomegranate, myrobalan, cutch, walnut, marigold). The message can be read both vertically and horizontally and is picked out in the pink/orange/burgundy blocks. I am fascinated by non-verbal, antiquated modes of communication like morse code and semaphore. I love the slow, haptic nature of hand dying and hand weaving. The message in this piece silently screams the fate of our endangered species.

And me standing proudly by its side at the opening:)

A covid-style Zooislander will be online this year.

Here Zeb and I are modelling our Fibonacci sequence inspired outfits.

I am in Terrace, BC setting up my show, Arteology, at the beautiful Terrace Art Gallery.

I love this town. What a gorgeous location. The surrounding landscape is stunning. No wonder so many artists live here!

Go to the Arteology page for images of all the pieces in the show.

This piece started life 18 years ago. It had become rather moth eaten and had recently found a new owner. I arranged to add new life to the tired old piece and it became this colourful and vibrant hanging.

This is how the original looked.