Gramma Stories ~ Along the Road to Freedom

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How exciting to have an art exhibit come to town featuring Mennonite women from Russia who made their way to Canada under impossible circumstances! The exhibit is at the Ambrose University in Calgary and will be there for another few weeks. There was a reception at the opening of the exhibit in early March and the artist Ray Dirks was present to give background for his reasons for creating the paintings. This reception also included a choir and a story from Hugo Neufeld who had a direct connection to one of the paintings. (see below)

Two weeks later a group of 21 women came from various Mennonite churches in the Calgary area to view the exhibit. The event was billed as "Gramma Stories". There were presentations from four women. Jeanette Thiessen told the story of Grandma Baerg who endured many hardships. When they arrived in Quebec after an uncomfortable trip they were surprised by offerings of sandwiches, cake, and the Gospel of John!

Rose Klassen passed on the story of her Grandma Retzlaff who lost many members of her immediate family, including two infant daughters, during her escape from the Red Army. Two Chin ladies Tial Mawi and Hnin Tida, dressed in their cultural outfits told us about their modern day trek from the jungles of Burma to Calgary. They repeatedly said how their faith and determination got them to the beautiful country of Canada. The Chin congregation joined Mennonite Church Alberta in 2013.

There were other spontaneous stories that included a beautiful pill box and a hand sized manicure set that served the entire Mennonite community in a Siberian camp. Alice Unrau shared her experiences of her involvement in the Mennonite Historical Society. She urged us to get involved and attend a conference being in Edmonton this November.

The afternoon also included an urban “faspa” that lacked zwiebach or kringle but the tasty lunch was enjoyed by all!

~ Kate Janzen

(Kate is a member of Foothills Mennonite Church, Calgary, and is the Mennonite Women Alberta Rep on the Mennonite Women Canada executive.)

ALONG THE ROAD TO FREEDOM

New date and times for this art exhibit!

February 1 to March 8, 2015

Monday through Friday 9 am to 1 pm

Wednesday and Friday also 7 pm to 8:30 pm

at St. Catharines United Mennonite Church

335 Linwell Road, St. Catharines, ON  L2M 7W7

In art and words, Along the Road to Freedom tells the dramatic stories of Mennonite women and their families who fled the Soviet Union in the decade after the Russian Revolution and during World War II. Despite the despair, horror and loss each of these families faced, at its core, this exhibit is about love, courage, humility, determination and faith.

Along the Road to Freedom developed out of the desire of the project’s committee members to honour the women responsible for bringing them to Canada. Artworks are sponsored, for the most part, by families. Artist Ray Dirks interviewed sponsoring family members, collected research material and cobbled together memories into images to create the paintings.

After the tour the artworks will be permanently installed in Winnipeg as lasting reminders that we should remember our stories, and pass them on to our children and grandchildren.

Check out this interview from a local TV station! 

Creating Beauty out of Randomness

On September 26-28 a group of creative women from across Saskatchewan participated in Shekinah Retreat Centre's annual Quilting and Scrapbooking Retreat.   Retreat participants use quilting as a metaphor for God's creative work in their lives. To read more about this event click on this link to an article written by Donna Schulz (Canadian Mennonite, October 13, 2014 issue).  Donna is the Saskatchewan Correspondent for the Canadian Mennonite.

Participants at the Shekinah Retreat Centre’s Quilting and Scrapbooking Retreat gather for a group photo on their final day together. Many of the women are holding items they crafted during the three-day event.

ALONG THE ROAD TO FREEDOM

~  an exhibition of 22 Paintings by Winnipeg artist Ray Dirks

~  a project of the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery, Winnipeg

In art and words, Along the Road to Freedom tells the dramatic stories of Mennonite women and their families who fled the Soviet Union in the decade after the Russian Revolution and during World War II. Despite the despair, horror and loss each of these families faced, at its core, this exhibit is about love, courage, humility, determination and faith.

Along the Road to Freedom developed out of the desire of the project’s committee members to honour the women responsible for bringing them to Canada. Artworks are sponsored, for the most part, by families. Artist Ray Dirks interviewed sponsoring family members, collected research material and cobbled together memories into images to create the paintings.

After the tour the artworks will be permanently installed in Winnipeg as lasting reminders that we should remember our stories, and pass them on to our children and grandchildren.

This exhibit is on display at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, ON from September 8, 2014 to January 18, 2015.  For more details regarding hours and map to the location visit the website.

Women walking together in faith - November 2013 - "Praising God through dance"

Today I thought I would post a link to MW Canada's latest contribution to our 'Women Walking Together in Faith' page in the Canadian Mennonite which appeared in the January 20 issue and realized that I hadn't posted the link to the article by Kate Janzen of Calgary who wrote "Praising God through dance" which was published on November 11.

Kate starts her article with a question:  What is a Mennonite dilemma? Answer:  Free dance lessons!

Here is an exerpt from the interview:
Kate:  Do you think dancing could be part of worshipping God?
Quinlan:  When I dance, it feels like a prayer and I can communicate feelings that are too deep for words.  God made me in his image and he says my body is his temple, so dance is praise to the Creator.

Click here to read the whole article.

Advent Series in Vineland, Ontario

This Advent at Vineland United Mennonite Church, our pastors, Ross Penner and Greg Dueck, are presenting a series of sermons called "The Grandmothers of Messiah". Ross was inspired by a quilt designed and stitched by Brenda Suderman of Winnipeg which was on display at the Mennonite Church Canada Assembly in July of this year.  The following is a description of the quilt written by Brenda.

Great Mothers of Jesus Quilt - Matthew 1:1-17

This quilt is a visual representation of the genealogy of Jesus in the first chapter of Matthew.  Five women--Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary--are included in this genealogy linking Abraham to Jesus, breaking the pattern of the 42 generations of men.  Each of the men is represented by a dark rectangle, and the women's names are spelled out giving them visual and theological significance.  I chose to spell out Bathsheba's name in pale letters to signify that she is not explicitly named in Matthew's genealogy, but described instead as the wife of Uriah.  

Too often these women have often been dismissed as prostitutes, called sexually deviant, or marginalized as outsiders.  The writer of Matthew clearly wanted to signify to his first century readers that these women had a place in the story of the patriarchs and their faithfulness to God.

What these women have in common are some obvious facts:  they are all mothers of sons, although none of them appear to be mothers before their stories appear in the Old Testament accounts, and they use ordinary objects like clothing or a red cord to advance their situations.  

Matthew includes them in his genealogy to present a message of God working in unlikely circumstances and unusual characters to achieve God's purpose, setting the stage for a young women like Mary to become the mother of Jesus.

I made this quilt for an assignment in a master's level course in the Old Testament I took at University of Winnipeg.  It has been on display at the University of Winnipeg, Providence College, the offices of the Canadian Council of Churches in Toronto and at the Mennonite Church Canada assembly in Vancouver in 2012, as well as in my home church in Winnipeg.

***Brenda Suderman is a journalist and quiltmaker currently completing a Masters of Arts degree in theology at the University of Winnipeg.  She writes for the faith page of the Winnipeg Free Press and is a member of Home Street Mennonite Church.  You might want to check out her blog HERE. 

Canadian Mennonite - Front Covers

Here is something that we, Mennonite Women Canada, are rather proud of!

In 2007 Canadian Mennonite Editor/Publisher Tim Miller Dyck approached Erna Neufeldt - former Mennonite Women Canada President (2005-11), and invited us into a new and exciting venture.

Six times a year we would have a full page in the Canadian Mennonite on which to tell the varied and inspirational stories of women walking the faith.

Leona Dueck Penner is the CM liaison for us and helps us write and re-write our articles until we get it right. We appreciate her continued help and support she still keeps giving us, even to this very day.

Our first article featured the "Pennies & Prayer Inheritance Fund" and it appeared in the Nov. 12/07 issue. Since then we have had many articles with diverse topics. We were also invited to submit our own photos to go with our articles and surprise, surprise... on 4 occasions our photos have been chosen to grace the front cover of the Canadian Mennonite magazine.

Below are the 4 front covers...

January 23, 2012
Photo by Myrna Sawatzky, SK

November 28, 2011
Photo by Leona Dueck Penner, MB

July 11, 2011
Photo by Dawn Martens Koop, ON

November 29, 2010
Photo by Waltrude Gortzen, BC

Alma Elias, Quilter

INTERVIEW WITH ALMA ELIAS
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
How did you come to have an interest in quilting?

I loved fabrics and I wanted to make a memory quilt for my son.

My mother was an inspiration. She sewed out of necessity but she was always creative. She sewed most of my clothes including dresses with three tiered skirts and puffed sleeves. My sisters and I felt special in our Sunday best. Mom had an artistic eye and she adored beautiful fabrics. I can still see her caressing bolts of fabric in Friesen's Dept. Store.

When I got married I was a student so out of necessity I too learned to sew. I found I enjoyed making my own clothes and also adding a personal touch to curtains and wool comforter coverings.

When my first son was 6 years old I wanted to make a memory quilt for his bed so my very first quilt was made of his fabric crayon drawings on squares that alternated with checked squares. I still have it. It's still precious.

Why did you choose to do "Easter Sunday"?

I love the watercolor technique. I enrolled in a class and started to prepare my more than 200 two-inch squares of different fabrics. Our assignment was to make a 13 by 15 two-inch square block. But I had this picture in my mind that wouldn't go away. I pictured a cross on a floral background with glowing light radiating behind it. And it was big. I saw it hanging in the front of our church. So I approached our pastor saying I had an idea for a quilt for Easter Sunday. Would he be open to using it as an aid to worship? I received a definite yes. So I kept on working. Now I really should have made that 13 by 15 2-inch square block because I did a lot of ripping and substituting. Watercolor technique looks much easier than it really is. One 2-inch square turned one-quarter turn can interrupt the flow of line or color. When it was completed, there were 2000 2-inch squares behind and around the cross and it was ready for Easter Sunday 2000.

For the complete interview click on Mennonite Women Canada under links and go to Visual Art.

Photo by John Elias

Mennonite Artist Project

Congratulations to Kim Stauffer, the founder of the new Mennonite Artist Project (MAP) for Canada and the United States. This new initiative will allow us to see the wonderful creativity of Mennonite artists. With the blessing of the MAP Council we are pleased to feature one artist a month on this blog.
www.mennoniteartistproject.com

Feature Artist

Liz Nofziger
Installation Artist--Boston, Massachusetts

Kim Stauffer: What is your discipline?
Liz: I make site-specific installations, allowing the physical space and its past and present uses to inform the work. I use video, sound, light, and sculptural elements to transform space.

I am fascinated by what we overlook within the architectures we inhabit. I examine and excavate the layered pasts of a space and/or object, reorganizing in light of contemporary culture and current events. Sparked by religion, politics, pop-culture, and personal experience, these site manipulations are comprised of familiar, benign elements re-configured, thereby blurring the lines between attraction and repulsion, high and low. Playing with perspective, voyeurism, and humor, I consider scale and demand physical involvement and curiosity from the viewer.

Tell me about your process. How do your ideas form and develop?
My work is very much about process. There’s always a large research component. The extremely site-based works I make rely heavily on spontaneity, and being capable of living with uncertainty--a sort of faith that I will find the elements that “make” the installation work. I find that my work is most successful when I allow this open space for spontaneity and trust that I will find the elements that need to come together to give it the complexity that it needs.

The complete interview is published at MennoniteArtistProject.com. Mennonite Artist Project is open to Mennonite-related artists of any discipline.