Innovative textile-based artwork exploded across the Canadian Prairies in the second half of the twentieth century. Melding craft traditions with modern and modernist movements in art and theory, a diverse body of creators opened a beautiful new chapter in textile art.

Prairie Interlace brings together some of the most important scholars of art and craft in Canada to examine the work of forty-eight artists working with textiles from the 1960s to 2000. Recapturing and recording lost histories, this book explores both artists working with textiles and centres of textile study and production, paying special attention to the contexts in which artworks were produced. Indigenous scholars, experts in textile techniques, and experts in Prairie textile history provide fascinating insight into an artistic movement which, until now, has been largely overlooked.

Featuring over one hundred and fifty beautiful full-colour images of textile works, many of which have never before been photographed for print, Prairie Interlace provides an opportunity to discover a fascinating movement which has not received the attention it deserves and invites further investigation of this rich period in Canadian art history.

Developed from the travelling exhibition of the same name, Prairie Interlace is a collaboration between Nickle Galleries, University of Calgary in Calgary, AB and the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, SK.

Michele Hardy is an academic curator with Nickle Galleries and an adjunct member of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Calgary. She is the author of numerous book chapters, articles, and exhibition catalogues and has curated more than three dozen exhibitions with a particular emphasis on Alberta craft and textiles.

Michele Hardy's profile page

Timothy Long has been Head Curator at the MacKenzie Art Gallery since 2001. His landmark exhibitions of Saskatchewan artists include: David Thauberger: Road Trips & Other Diversions (2013); Tactile Desires: The Work of Jack Sures (2011); and Joe Fafard (2007). His recent publications include: After Presence: Problems of Presence in Contemporary Art (MacKenzie Art Gallery, 2013) and The Vaults: Art from the MacKenzie Art Gallery and University of Regina Collections (with Stephen King, University of Regina Press, 2013).

Timothy Long's profile page

Julia Krueger is an independent curator, craft historian, and permanent collection registrar with SK Arts. She maintains an active teaching, writing, curatorial, and research practice grounded in material culture and craft theory with a focus on the Canadian Prairie

Julia Krueger's profile page