Artist Tells Tales!

While Artists in general constantly struggle for a spark of inspiration, Mary Kroetsch just asks one question,  “Tell Me a Story?”  That is how a textile/mixed media collage begins.

“I’ve been accused my whole life of being shy and kind of quiet, especially in group settings.  But if I don’t stay kind of quiet, I’ll miss the stuff people are talking about.” And it’s what other people are saying that ends up in Mary’s work.

She has been listening to people’s stories for as long as she can remember.  Like the story her Grandmother told about her Great Aunt Hilda stealing a car as a young girl.  Well there were only 2 Model Ts owned in town at that time so it was an honest mistake.

“My Mother has some great stories of her childhood.  I never tire of hearing the one about her canvassing the neighborhood and asking for bananas, her favorite fruit as a little girl.”


But not all the stories she hears are cute and fun.  Some are very sad and some are just devastating.  “We all go through life experiencing the good and the bad.  Sometimes we don’t even participate in the story.  We just stand on the curb watching and listening.  Then we share the stories as we observed the reality.” She says that by the time she hears a story and incorporates it into an art piece, the truth has become fiction.  They aren’t epics or sagas either.  “You can stir the imagination with just a few words”.

Mary Kroetsch – Textile/Mixed Media Artist

Mary began her career by accident.  It started when her Mother provided her with her first basic sewing class, around the age of 10, and she has been exploring how to use needle and thread to make pretty things since.  “I have experimented with a lot of different mediums, and with each experiment I learn new ways of merging all types of fibre together.”   With a passion for beads each piece of Mary’s artwork incorporates their sparkle.  “I get a lot of pleasure out of using needle and thread.”

She has a fascination with history and in particular, historical recordings that tell stories.  In 2004 she participated in an exhibit in the UK where artists depicted their versions of Pre-historic Rock Carvings; ancient writings that record the events of past life times.  “I often use samples of ancient graffiti in my work.  It’s not just the graphic simplicity that inspires me, but the story being told, or rather the story we think is being told by a people no longer able to voice their own words.”

But her work also includes current events of the present and the need to quietly voice her beliefs in practicing global tolerance. For Mary the past and the present are close cousins.  Many of the events today, can be found mirroring events of the past and the stories this merging can create are shown in her art.
 

In her work Mary strives for 3 things:
 
1.  A Story is Being Told – often the words accompany the art.
2.  A Point of Reference – something the viewer easily recognizes.
3.  Conceptual Representation – to make the viewer think, discuss and draw their own conclusions.
 

She enjoys the building process of her work best of all and endeavors to enlighten people with unique, two and three dimensional, art forms created with textiles, found objects, and all types of organic and man-made fibres.  But it is the story being told that is at the forefront of her work.
 
Mary has been commissioned to create an art piece called Every Woman's Stories- celebrating Women's Lives for the CIBC Breast Cancer Screening Centre at St. Michael's Hospital by ACA Gallery & Hema Abeygunawardena (Catherine Collective).  


Mary Kroetsch – Textile/Mixed Media Artist