The RVF’s 2022 visual theme was created by Chéticamp artist Yvette Muise.
Muise’s design shows six hands touching a round golden disc with six objects on it, representing our collective traditions and the rich possibilities that exist when we share and adapt them in community.
The piece has an amazing texture; it took me a minute to realise that this is because it is a rug. I wanted to find out more about this artist and this art form.
Chéticamp, Nova Scotia is an Acadian fishing village. Hooked rugs have decorated Chéticamp’s homes for more than 150 years. At one time, visitors to the village were greeted by a sign that read “Chéticamp: Rug Hooking Capital of the World”.
Yvette Muise learned the art of rug hooking from her mother when she was just six years old, and she has been hand-hooking rugs and helping to preserve Chéticamp’s rug hooking tradition ever since.
A history of the craft
At first, Chéticamp rugs were made for household use, using worn-out clothing cut into long strips, hooked into burlap grain and feed bags. In the 1920s, Washington-born artist Lilian Burke came for a visit and saw an economic opportunity. She began to commission locals to weave rugs for sale in her posh New York art gallery.
The rugs were a hit, creating a cottage industry in Chéticamp. It is believed at one point that 250 local rug hookers worked to meet the international demand for hooked rugs. The largest of these commissions covered an entire wall and required the collaboration of a dozen people. Realising the economic value of their labour, the Chéticamp rug hookers organised cooperatives and opened their own shops to sell rugs and mats to tourists.
Buckingham Palace, the White House, the Vatican, and the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa all have Chéticamp rugs. In 1998, a group of rug hookers from Chéticamp created a 15 ft x 10ft rug for the Canadian Room at Rideau Hall, the residence of Canada’s Governor-General. This rug includes the wildflowers of the ten Provinces and two Territories adorned with a leafy scroll border on a natural wool background.
Today, artisans like Yvette Muise and groups like the Trois Pignons Museum, run by the Society Saint-Pierre, continue this great Chéticamp tradition.
Listen to Yvette Muise speak about her RVF creation on Chéticamp’s community radio station, CKJM.
Catherine Fisher, blogger
