‘Changing Frequently and Uncertainly’ at the AGB through September

By Michael Riley, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Art lovers were treated to the creations of artist and maker Mary Kroetsch at the opening of her exhibit “Changing Frequently and Uncertainly” at the Art Gallery of Bancroft on Sept. 4 at 7:30 p.m. The show is sponsored by the Old Hastings Mercantile and Gallery and Susan Latremoille. For more information about Kroetsch and her work, go to https://www.mary-kroetsch-textile-mixedmedia-artist.com ¹, or email mary-kroetsch-artist@live.ca. Kroetsch, artist Henry Melissa Gordon and artist Molly Moldovan comment to The Bancroft Times about this exciting new show at the AGB through September 26.

According to her website, Kroetsch's creative practice is research-creational integrating mixed methods of making to push and explore issues arising from limitations and disconnects that happen when many layers impact surfaces, production and fabrication. 

Her recent works revolve around mini -installations acting as a metaphor for the complexities in life, exploring identity mapping encompassed through memories, experiences, relationships, and numbered values that add up to one's sense of self. She obtained Certification in Textile Surface Design from the Haliburton School of the Arts, studied Visual Arts Foundations at Central Tech Art School, Toronto, and completed the Ontario Arts Council's Artist-Educator Foundations Course.

She completed her Studio Arts Degree at the Guelph Ontario University in 2023. Her work has recently been part of exhibitions at the Elora Centre for the Arts (Elora, Ontario) the Propeller Art Gallery, (Toronto, Ontario), the Guelph Civic Museum (Guelph, Ontario), the Art Gallery of Guelph (Guelph, Ontario) and the King City Heritage Arts Centre, (King City, Ontario). Mary's works are part of private and public collections including St. Michael's
Hospital (Toronto, Ontario) and the Ilkley Museum, (Yorkshire, England).

Moldovan says that Kroetsch's work is fascinating and that “Changing Frequently and Uncertainly” refers to the ongoing nature of the project, currently spanning 25 years. 

“As our society shifts and changes direction, so might the content that will be added to this project. Largely installation-based, Mary's feminist approach  explores and  also subverts traditional ‘womanly' arts such as hand embroidery by layering and incorporating it into artworks that strongly relate to female identity and self-determination. Mary also engages with newer technology: some of her pieces are 3-D printed, and many involve vintage photography, the images rendered in cyanotype or modified and incorporated into pieces that carry information about the fluidity of identity in a time of ongoing societal change.  My favourite piece might be ‘Sirens.'    There's just something about the three women - so care-free and in the moment - that keeps drawing my gaze.   They have been rendered so vividly, I can almost place myself among them,” she says. 

Kroetsch told The Bancroft Times on Sept. 2 that she's been a maker most of her life and she prefers that moniker over artist because she does a lot of tinkering and thinking before she gets down to creating. 

“But to be honest I would have to say I started making when I was around 10 years old and my mom put needle and thread in my hands.   She was an amazing Maker although she never thought so even when as young girl, she taught herself how to knit so she could make a pair of gloves for her uncle that fit.   He apparently lost a finger during a hunting accident and was always complaining about gloves not fitting.

I never got on well with knitting, but crocheting was cool and I loved the idea of making fashion as well as my mom did for me and my sister but I only got as far as clothing for my Troll dolls.  But I still tinker all the time and while formal education has shared new ideas, mostly I just like to figure things out in my own time and enjoy the ride of discovery,” she says. 

Kroetsch say she didn't really receive any encouragement from anyone to create until she was in her mid-twenties. 

“My dad insisted we kids be educated in the subjects that would lead to a job. So, no art classes for me. But in 1982, I met my husband [Ian] who oozed encouragement for me to create. I refer lovingly to him as my Muse for the 36 years we shared together.

He is the only person in my life who would never say, ‘You can't do that!' but instead would say, ‘Try it!' He also introduced me to some of the classic artists like Turner and Constable.   He loved his landscapes.

He always claimed he had no creative talent, but I disagree.   His critiques of my work were thoughtful and very creative.   He was great with helping me come up with good tongue in cheek titles.  The piece in this show called ‘Sirens' – he named that one,” she says. 

According to Kroetsch, there isn't a single material she hasn't tried to use to think about trying to use when she creates. 

“It is hard when completing a submission form to sometimes find the right type of Artist I need to select.   I truly am mixed media but I am also Inter-disciplinary.   If I am lucky there is an other option to check, but that doesn't describe me either.

I will say this – needle and thread regularly star in my works.   Thread is the best glue to attach things together and it is archival.

Even now as I branch into the newer creative technologies to make, thread still gets to be a star in my making process.   I have tried 3D printing on fabric, and I have 3D printed some lace.   I have this crazy idea that to my mom's smocking or knitting patterns could be turned into a 3D thread landscape sculpture,” she says. 

As to what inspires her daily to create art, Kroetsch says it's colour and persons. 

“This world has become so gray. And the people in it are so isolated from not physically connecting. I love to break out of the studio isolation and sit in a pub, a coffee shop, a park – anywhere where there are persons. We are strangers and often there is no contact of any kind, but I feel connected in that moment just hearing bits of conversation and some laughter. It is these moments where I get my best ideas,” she says. 

Kroetsch says that at her husband Ian's encouragement she went back to school in 2015 and spent eight years getting her BA in Studio Arts and Museum Studies, which she enjoyed but her graduating exhibition was the hardest for her. 

“I took one vintage studio portrait of a young women who I named Fanny and just 

kept recreating her with all the making options aloud me in school.   This is when I was introduced to 3D printing and laser cutting.

I was amazed at just how many ways Fanny could be presented and storied. The difficulty I believe was my age as I never seemed to get the same degree of support and critiquing from my fellow students and the profs that I had wanted and hoped for.

Not sure why this was so important, but I lost my muse in 2018, and I just wanted some kind of…It was the good show no one really saw,” she says. 

As to how Changing Frequently and Uncertainly came to be, Kroetsch says she is 70 years old, and has lived an interesting life and it has not been stagnant, changing direction often and never really knowing what path she is on or where it will take her. 

“Since graduating in 2023 I have tried to get back on the path of making that I was on in 2015, but too much has changed or not changed. I have managed to get back into the swing of things over the past 3 years with some successes, but it no longer satisfies me – the way it used to be and is.

This exhibition is a retrospective of my past 25 years as a Maker.   It is my review of my journey to rediscover what it is I am trying to say.   By doing this exhibition and showing the old work with the new work, I have decided it is time for another change of path for me. My husband's last words to me were, ‘Find a new Direction!'   Grief for the past eight years has been an iron door keeping me from finding that direction.   I keep sliding into the old ways of making and limiting myself from really digging into the new ways of making that are out there.

So this exhibition is a personal evaluation of where I have been and where I want to go next,” she says. 

Kroetsch says that if viewers can take away a smile from this exhibition, that'll be just fine with her. 

“But if maybe they can grasp the idea that there is more to connecting with persons

and bring colour into their lives by re-embracing the human moments we have abandoned due to social media, over scheduled lives, and now heaven forbid embracing AI as our best pal that would be best. Change is always hard, but to live and not be isolated you need to take the uncertain chance to give change a try,” she says. 

Kroetsch says her favourite piece in the exhibit is called “Everyone,” and says she has already gotten some criticism that the dolls should be presented in different colours of skin tone, and the question of gender pops up. 

“But you are missing my point if those are your questions about this piece. As I said my making inspiration comes from colour and persons.   The colour of what we wear on our bodies including our skin can be used to hide what we are or celebrate what we are.   It does not reflect who we are.   That is something you need to dig through the surface, sometimes deeply, to discover. But this gray world we live in now is an isolated and a lonely one for many of us, and it just gets lonelier with all the different boxes of life we are supposed to either fit into or embrace. I am tired of living in box after box.   I want to get out and meet and enjoy the multitudes of Persons – share my company, my stories, my laughter.   This piece quietly asks everyone to break out and join me,” she says. 

As to what she'd say to folks considering coming to her show through September she would say to bring a friend.

“Enjoy a human moment with someone as you view the works. Discuss and share any stories of your own you may meet in the images. Smile!” she says. 

Larry Greg was there and thought the exhibit was really unusual, quite different and striking. 

“I mean, her images are from old photographs, so it's not like she designed the image but the way she portrays it and brings it to life with the stitching, it's quite remarkable. Especially from someone [like me] who has no idea about sewing or anything like that, it seems like a lot of work goes into that,” he says. 

Sosa was there from Toronto, and was really thankful that she'd come to hear Kroetsch's perspective on her work.

“I saw it earlier today and I kind of perused but I don't think I understood some of the political contexts which makes me more interested in ever in the artwork. 

“It's so interesting that I saw that one [pointing to the work ‘Everyone']. I thought of paper cut out dolls a child and I loved dolls growing up a lot. So they're very important to me. But just how she took it so many more levels. And it's cool how she took her old life in IT and wove it into this. It's sort of cool to me how she transposed those two parts of her technology. I love how she's interested in new materials, the old and the new. And these images, these were very important women and that saying we're not going to take this sitting down, so that political context of Roe vs. Wade and losing rights to abortion. So it's important we look at what we're living as a gender and what we have lost and what we could lose even more in terms of our personhood,” she says. 

Gordon revealed that she always enjoys openings and it's especially a pleasure to welcome an artist from further afield, like Kroetsch. 

“At the opening, visitors responded very positively to Mary's work. She  is inspired by vintage photographs and strong feminist perspectives. Beside many of her artworks there are little information panels that illuminate  the making process and the meaning of the work, often with unexpected twists and insights. At the opening I could see people getting up close to some of the portraits and being amazed that the rich colours and surfaces were the result of embroidery. And Mary moves effortlessly from  a traditional medium like embroidery to a most contemporary medium, like 3-D printing.  During Mary's artist talk we really got the sense that her powerful curiosity drives so many of her creative experiments. If I was going to live with just one of Mary ‘s artworks, it would have to be ‘Confidants.' It really speaks to me about close, supportive connections between women,” she says. 

Moldovan said it was a fun evening with delicious nibbles, prepared by talented volunteer Philo Handler and many interesting conversations. 

“The artist very much  appreciated the conversations and the curiosity about her work and was delighted that some of the pieces had sold in advance of the opening reception. I'm very taken with Mary's embrace and use of new and old technologies. She creates artworks that  subvert traditional notions of ‘womanly' arts such as hand embroidery by layering and incorporating it into artworks that strongly relate to female identity and self-determination.  some of her pieces are 3-D printed, and many involve vintage photography, some of the images rendered in cyanotype, all modified and reconfigured into pieces that carry information about the fluidity of identity in a time of societal change,” she says. 

Kroetsch told The Bancroft Times on Sept. 8 that the best part for her was the attendance. 

“I was warned that it could be light, but it was just the right amount of people to spend time with and chat. I love when people enjoy my work and engage in such interesting questions. Everyone seemed to really like my many styles of making and were very complimentary. I sold two and there was an inquiry about a commission. Molly says September is normally a busy month so fingers crossed more will be purchased. I spent two years pulling this show together and now I just want to chill for a while and move on to my next making journey.”

1. https://www.mary-kroetsch-textile-mixedmedia-artis t.com