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Trio of textile artists displaying work at Gabriola Arts and Heritage Centre

Tawny Maclachlan Capon, Heather Cameron and Barbara Klunder present ‘Triple Thread’
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Work by textile artists Tawny Maclachlan Capon, Heather Cameron and Barbara Klunder (cropped, from left) will be on display in the upcoming Triple Thread exhibition at the Gabriola Arts and Heritage Centre. (Photos courtesy the artists)

After showing their work together for the first time last year, a pair of Gabriola artists are back with a new show and this time they brought a friend.

From Nov. 5 to 7, Tawny Maclachlan Capon, Heather Cameron and Barbara Klunder present Triple Thread at the Gabriola Arts and Heritage Centre. The show marks the return of the partnership of Maclachlan Capon and Cameron, whose exhibition Beneath the Surface was held at the venue in 2020.

“We had a good time last year and then we’re all COVID-ed again and [we said] ‘Let’s work towards another show, it worked,’” Maclachlan Capon said. “The first show and this show we don’t know what each other are doing. We just trust each other to be who we are.”

For the exhibition, Maclachlan Capon will be displaying a series of pieces sewn onto paper and hanged on the gallery’s glass windowpanes that she’s calling “spirits.”

Among the work Cameron will have on display is an overcoat once owned by Gabriola musician Victor Anthony, who died in 2018. The coat was eaten by moths but Cameron has artfully mended the coat and has embroidered phrases Anthony was known for onto its surface.

This year Maclachlan Capon invited longtime friend Klunder to join them. Klunder lived briefly on Gabriola in the early ’90s but now lives on Toronto Island. She’ll be showing 12 “worms,” six-foot-long scarf-like pieces that Maclachlan Capon said make use of cotton, linen, hemp, wool and cashmere.

Maclachlan Capon said the one thing the three artists have in common is “a passion for thread and textiles and stitching”

“The work that Heather’s doing right now is incredibly precise … there’s 40,000 stitches in the piece that she’s just done,” Maclachlan Capon said. “And Barbara’s stitching is wonderfully emotive and loose and my stitching, I’d say, is spontaneous, for want of another word.”

WHAT’S ON … Triple Thread is on display at the Gabriola Arts and Heritage Centre, 476 South Rd., Gabriola Island, on Nov. 5 from 4 to 8 p.m., Nov. 6 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Nov. 7 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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