North Vancouver Community Arts Council presents Walking on the Land by Rebecca Graham, on display until Aug. 24 at the City Atrium Gallery, 141 W. 14th St., North Vancouver.
Environmental artist Rebecca Graham has long been fascinated by shoes, both for their esthetic quality and for the purpose they serve.
"We're vulnerable without our shoes," she says. "Our feet are very soft, they're prone to injury, and so I'm interested in looking at shoes from that perspective in terms of our relationship with the environment."
In her latest solo exhibit, Walking on the Land, Graham presents a collection of footwear woven from all-natural materials. When sourcing that material, she never harvests living plants from wild ecosystems, but instead salvages deadfall or seeks out donations from gardeners or invasive species programs.
"I just, as much as possible, try to be in the right place at the right time to gather the materials and save them," she says.
Setting up her exhibit earlier this week, Graham tells the story behind each piece of wearable art. One pair of sandals is made from black cottonwood bark she harvested from driftwood logs found along the Squamish River. Another pair of shoes incorporates white birch bark that her sister and brother-in-law collected from deadfall in northern New Brunswick. Graham has also gathered shoemaking material in her own urban Vancouver neighbourhood including English ivy, reviled as an invasive species in B.C., and bark from a felled Japanese flowering cherry tree.
"I scooped it up, I salvaged it. Luckily for me it was cut down in the spring time, which is the only time that you can get the bark off the tree when the sap is running," she says.
Graham has a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a diploma in fashion design from Blanche Macdonald Centre. With a background in agriculture and environmental ethics, she has spent many years leading weaving workshops, giving presentations and appearing as a guest artist at venues across the Lower Mainland.
Her shoes feature a number of different weaving techniques: plain weave, twill weave, diagonal plaiting, twining, crocheting, braiding and cordage. Most plants can't be woven when they are still fresh and green.
"A basket or a shoe, if it's tight, if it's woven with green material, then by the time that material dries, it will be rickety," she says, explaining that once she has gathered material, she allows it to dry completely and, when ready to weave, she soaks it in water to make it pliable.
Some of the shoes in Graham's exhibit are reproductions of traditional styles, but constructed out of local plants. For example, she used western red cedar to make a pair of diagonalplaited lapti, a style of shoe historically worn in Russia and Scandinavia. There are also Japanesestyle straw sandals and boots in the exhibit. Other shoes were inspired by contemporary designs. One pair resembles Hush Puppies loafers, but is made of blackberry bark, New Zealand flax and corn husks. Another pair is reminiscent of Crocs, but is made of English ivy.
Most of Graham's plant-based shoes, boots and sandals are wide in the front because she uses her own feet as templates.
"I have very wide feet. They're very difficult to fit, and so finding shoes that fit is often a great challenge for me," she says.
All of the shoes are wearable. In fact, Graham walked around in each pair leading up to the exhibit to get a better feel for them.
"As I'm wearing them, I'm trying to imagine in my head what it's like to go out into the world wearing these shoes," she says. "They're going to break down, they're going to get wet. What sorts of conditions were they meant to be used in and what did the wearers suffer as a consequence?"
***
Graham will give an artist's talk on Tuesday, July 21, 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. at North Vancouver City Hall, 141 W. 14th St., North Vancouver.
The non-profit organization Evergreen has partnered with the North Vancouver Community Arts Council and Graham to host a City Park Stewards event on Saturday, July 25 from 9 a.m. to noon at Mahon Park. Participants will remove invasive species and learn simple weaving techniques from Graham. Meet behind the Chris Zuehlke baseball diamond near Jones Avenue and West 19th Street.
