S,T
Simarjeet Sahota
“Both formal and informal gender role appropriate socialization of girl children essentially was a job of senior women be it mothers or female teachers. The status and esteem of the educator was dependent on how good of a subservient they created for patriarchy and the establishment. I choose this image to document how master's tools can indeed dismantle the master's house. “Looking Unto Jesus” a class in penmanship. Teach me to write and I'll write the story of my oppression for all the world to read.”
Simarjeet Sahota
Lisa Saunders
Katia Scandale
“I chose this photo because of the emtional impact it gives it viewers. The image showcases young school girls in training during the Iranian revolution. Their expressions speak more than words could. The girls are volunteering to risk their lives to protect and defend their country. The image made me reflect on my youth, and the contrast between my childhood obstacles and theirs. Their honourable sacrifices deserve recongnition and through this image the audience is able to experience their reality.”
Katia Scandale
Katia Scandale
Katia Scandale
Katia Scandale
Katia Scandale
Katia Scandale
Katia Scandale
Katia Scandale
Colleen Schindler-Lynch
Lois Schklar
“I really enjoyed my time (with the redwork circle). I chose this pattern of the crying, desperate woman for its universal symbolism of the trauma and futility of the horror that continues unabated in this “civilized” world we have created. The glimmer of hope I hold on to, is time spent (as with the redwork circle) in quiet pursuits.”
Nicole Sen
Deniz Seker
“All my life I had to move and start my life over 8 times, but I have to say that throughout these moves I didn’t have fear at all. Each time I accept change with excitement and confidence. The biggest decision was marrying in June 97 and moving away to a new country without knowing the language and nothing at all about the island where I was moving, while leaving my established stable life and successful career. How did my parents even let me do this? I’m not saying that you should be second guessing yourself, or rethinking if you really want to be with this person. I’m speaking more about what effects will moving to a new country and culture potentially have on you. This embroidery of a June bride bunny looking away from the house in the distance reminded me of my youth and brave decision.”
Laylah Shand
“Honestly, I'm not sure I just saw it and thought it was very pretty, peaceful, and amazing. Simple but yet complex.”
Cathy Shaughnessy
Jaclyn Shoub
Christina Simmons
“I come from the U.S. and taught women's history and African-American and Canadian history in my teaching career. I am white but feel deeply committed to the struggle for justice for people of African descent.”
Kat Singer
“I wanted to create an image that is entirely my own. Traditional redwork emboidery features lots of "cute" subjects. I wasn't inclided to work from a template, so I used the likeness of someone I love as inspiration for this work.”
Karolina Skupien
“It speaks to the power of women.”
Lisa Deanne Smith
“Having lived in NY in the early 1980's and mid 1990's, I'm familiar with this storyline and find it compelling. When watching 9/11 on television, safely in my home, I felt hope that the world powers treatment of the non-Western countries would be different, would be more respectful, after the tragedy on U.S land...unfortunately I was wrong.”
SeMonde Snauwaert
“This image was very quirky and assertive, in a way it was demanding me to pick it.”
Rosemary Spade
“(I chose this pattern) because I have had several refugees from Vietnam tell me their stories and it breaks my heart.”
Rosemary Spade
Rosemary Spade
Rosemary Spade
Rosemary Spade
“It amazes me how the world has coped with this and that the US, Japan and even Germany can now have good relations.”
Rosemary Spade
Angela Stadelman
“For me it represents an image of the feminine struggle of the hobbling of a woman, from the binding of girls feet to the extreme high heels of today.”
Jel Stankovic
Monique Stewart
“This is something that's happening in Canada right now, the removal of symbols of colonization, and something I feel strongly about. Symbols and names are important and those we continue to house need to represent everyone in our country. The stories we tell about our country need to be fully truthful about who we are and how Canada got here.”
Penka Stoyanova
“War is a terrible thing. It is bringing terror and suffering to so many people every day... My heart hurts just thinking of it. I cannot watch the news anymore, because I have nightmares after watching it. I am 61 years old and have been fortunate to never experience war. I pray for peace everyday.”
Penka Stoyanova
“I was born and raised in Bulgaria, and the Armenian genocide is something we learned about early in our lives. I have a lot of Armenian friends, whose predecessors came to Bulgaria in search for safety during these horrible years. It will mean a lot to me if I can participate in this project.”
Jenny Stimac
“I chose this image because I was 17 years old at the time it was taken, growing up in Detroit, Michigan, USA and had been active in the antiwar movement for about 2 years. We in the US were encouraged to call Vietnamese "Viet Cong" or the more racist "gooks". We were told they did not have the same kind of human attachments we white people did and did not experience loss and pain in the same way. I want to connect to this woman's extreme pain and loss while doing my redwork embroidery. I am an artist with good drawing skills and can draw the image myself. I have now lived a long time and experienced grief and loss. Also much more of humanity. When we first came to Canada in 1973, my war resistor husband and I befriended a young Vietnamese couple named Hue and Y Lan. Such a friendship would have been unthinkable in the US at that time.”
Lisa Sylvestre
“The residential schools section is the one that has some clear connection to my life. Having grown up as a part of the white majority in Canada, within the Catholic Church, these images so clearly convey the complete opposite childhood experience of a white child and a child of first nations heritage who was forced into the residential school system. Our initial failure to consider the First Peoples of this land as equals pales in comparison to our failure, to this day, to make right the terrible wrongs of the past; indeed, to perpetuate them still. This image, in particular, seems benign until one considers the force and trauma that must have preceded this child's 'claim' to live in a place that virtually destroyed the vast, rich, complex history of his people.”
Olivia Taylor
“I do not have any experience in embroidery so I decided to choose images that seemed simple enough in design in order to get my foot in the door and hopefully progress to more challenging patterns later on.”
Olivia Taylor
Gwen Tooth
“I remember my mother on wash day with a huge setup. Two big steel tubs for rinsing water in addition to a finger washer. Lots of pegs and lines inside the house and outside if not raining.”
Gwen Tooth
“I like the day of the week concept and I remember when we weren't allowed to wash and iron on Sundays, Laundry was done on Mondays, and ironing was done on Tuesdays. My mother taught me to embroider and I recently took a beginner's course to reconnect with this art. As a visual artist, I wanted to reconnect with the craft arts of my childhood and take them to a new level.”
Gwen Tooth
“I like the day of the week series and I remember doing some similar images in coloured embroidery as a young girl.”
Gwen Tooth
“I am curious to see all the images and tasks honoured by woman of a certain era. Her life was challenging and not a lot of time was left for creative work other than mending and perhaps embroidering.”
Gwen Tooth
“I chose this image as I have enjoyed working on the traditional days of the weeks embroidery patterns. With each day that I embroider, my stitching has become more relaxed to do and in appearance. Creating these quilt patches has helped to connect me to my youth and to my deceased mother, who taught me many of the traditional home crafts. It also connects me to other artists who are pitching in and helping with this project in the digital version of the sewing bee.”
Gwen Tooth
“I wish to complete the weekly traditional series of "homemaking" tasks. It has been a great pleasure working on these quilt squares.”
Gwen Tooth
“I can remember my mother buying a long yardage of linen with red stripes down each side- to be sewn into tea towel lengths. The images of the days of the week were then ironed on and were embroidered. I was told that I was doing this for my “hope chest". It was a very long time ago. I am now 76.”
Gwen Tooth
“I have always been interested in women having rights to be an independent and free-thinking individual whether within a relationship or not.”
Jacqueline Treloar
“The image is a part of my Covid 19 portrait project and regards our overlooking and ignoring the huge issues of street addiction and poverty in Toronto”
Kathleen Troy
“This image reminds me of the poster 'And Babies’ created by the Art Workers Coalition protesting the Vietnam war. The poster depicts a photograph taken on a personal camera in Veitnam during the Veitname war. The picture is a pile of babies and children dead on a dirt road disposed of inhumanely as if they were bags of garbage. This disregard for children and babies was a major human rights violation. Due to the graphic nature of this poster it was helpful in the Anti-war movement as the media were not showing the general public such graphic images of the war. Women and children are the most affected by war. The global pandemic Covid-19 has reinforced this inequality as women and children have been the most negatively affected. Woman's rights and children's rights are human rights.”