Home > Artist Database > Bio-bibliographic Database > ANDREWS, Mary
Artist Database
ANDREWS, Mary
- Born
- Montreal, Quebec, 1916
- Died
- Banff, Alberta, 2018
- Biography synopsis
- Andrews explored weaving in 1939 while working at camp, and continued to study textile theory and cloth construction. From 1943-1948, she set up the Ontario Government Home Weaving Service to revive handweaving and encourage a cottage industry. Along with two other weaving teachers she taught and developed the project throughout Ontario. During the last year of this programme she continued her own studies at the Penland School of Handcrafts (North Carolina). She taught handweaving in various locations including Korea. On returning she became Director of Handcrafts at the Grenfell Labrador Medical Mission and traveled throughout Northern Newfoundland and Labrador teaching handweaving, embroidery and traditional rug hooking with the intent of developing cottage industries that could subsidize the fishermen’s incomes. She remained in Labrador until September of 1962 when she moved to Banff. From 1962-77, she taught at The Banff School of Fine Arts where she developed a two-year Diploma granting programme. In 1972 she received her Master Weavers certification from the Guild of Canadian Weavers, and later published her Master’s Thesis “The Fundamentals of Weaving.” She became Master Weaver and obtained her Master Weaver Certificate in 1972. Her works are held at the Whyte Museum (Banff).
- Media used
- Weaving
- Education
- Penland School of Craft (North Carolina)
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
Writings about- "Women of Fibre: Mary Garnham Andrews and Articulation Plus Bow Valley Fibre Arts." Alberta Crafts Magazine Winter 2012: 14
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f94be12dc11553cd3dc4cf9/t/5f973e6bcfae243cb81de58a/1334856077453/2012.Winter_ABCraftMag.pdf - LaViolette, Mary-Beth. “The Gift of Time, the Gift of Weaving: Weaving and Fibre Art at the Banff Centre.” Prairie Interlace : Weaving Modernisms and the Expanded Frame 1960-2000. Ed by M. Hardy Calgary, AB: University of Calgary Press, 2023
- Stafford, Jane. "Remembering Mary Andrews." Jane Stafford Textiles Newsletter July 2018
http://janestaffordtextiles.com/blog/july-2018-newsletter/ - Townshend, Nancy. A History of Art in Alberta, 1905-1970 Calgary, Alberta: Bayeux, 2005
Writings by- Andrews, Mary. The Fundamentals of Weaving, 1991 Banff, Alta Book #1 - #3 Banff: 1987
