A Whale of a Tale

New Group Rug Hooking Project 

This year the Five Island Art Gallery is sponsoring another group rug hooking project. This one will be the creation of 30 or more story rugs for exhibit and sale during Festival 500, July 2011, when choral groups from around the world gather in St. John's for a week or more of music and song. All of the rugs will connect to the festival's theme The Power of Song.

Collective Rug - A Whale of a Tale
The whale is an iconic image for Festival 500 and in August a large rug(45"x 60") that features a whale was designed by Frances Ennis and put on burlap to use for demonstrating rug hooking at the Gallery in Tors Cove. This was in conjunction with See How it's Made 2010, a project of the Department of Innovation Trade and Rural Development. There was great enthusiasm for the project with well over 100 individuals trying out their skill at it, but there's still lots more to be done. 

The rug is mounted on a floor frame that can sit four people at a time. 

We take pictures of people while working on it, with their permission of course, and these will be displayed on an electronic photo board when the rug is exhibited.

The working title for the rug is A Whale of a Tale and features a whimsical design inspired both by the song Jack Was Every Inch a Sailor and Dr. Valerie Long's arrangement of it. The rug highlights this verse: "The whale went straight for Baffin's Bay 'bout 90 knots an hour, and every time he'd blow a spray he'd send in it a shower..."

The whale is diving into the water with a grand spray coming out from it's spout in all directions. And there's music happening with fiddlers and flute players and dancers having a time under the spout and on top of the spout and on the back of the whale. There will be a 3-D element with people hooked separately and attached to the rug later. Jack will be one of them, in oilskins and sou'wester hanging on to the whale's tail and trying his best to turn him inside out. The bottom right corner has a choir of cod, complete with conductor, there's dancing squid...and who knows what else will appear as the rug progresses.

Get Involved

Any choirs in and around the St. John's area who would like to be involved in hooking a small piece of the collective rug can contact Laura Coultas at the Five Island Art Gallery.