Laurie Swim: Land, Sea & Memory

When you're busy, your day-to-day relationship with textiles amounts to a pile of laundry, or spilling coffee on the carpet on your way out the door. Quilter Laurie Swim goes deeper, showing "the relationship Nova Scotia has always had with the sea and how it has affected our way of living---influenced culture," as she puts it. In "Make and Break,"for example, Swim refers to "a little engine invented in Nova Scotia that changed the way inshore fishermen went about their day's work." In another, "Choices," she explores the trend of youth leaving for work outside the province. –Sean Flinn