Blanketing

Blanketing accompanies a large public art work of the same name, commissioned by the City of Vancouver and hanging in the atrium at the entrance to Vancouver Public Library’s Central Branch in 2026. Six banners which are pictured in the publication are part of Platforms: The Teachers Among Us, a series of artworks that honour senior artists who have influenced emerging and mid-career artists in Vancouver. Lois Klassen was nominated to be a Platforms artist by book artist Ruby Lewis. In her nomination statement, Lewis notes, “Through her actions as artist and publisher, [Lois Klassen] has created a community of artists and writers who share commitment to collaboration and the open exchange of their work.”

Production of the six banner images (by Carl Wiebe and Lois Klassen together) took place during a month-long residency in Sointula, Malcolm Island, BC. The research and reflections found in the publication cover an inherited legacy of settler blankets and blanket-making methods that exist in a context of Indigenous blanket traditions andactivism. In the text, blanketing becomes an ethical practice,

Blanketing is a process of awareness. It is the intention of observing, smelling, hearing, and loving blankets that have been provided for use by textile makers. Your blankets may be made by friends or mothers or aunts or loved ones. You might have a blanket that is an art object or a near-sacred symbol of your belonging. Maybe you have blankets made by skilled textile makers, and maybe their wages and working conditions are not nearly worth their effort and skill but maybe the choice of working is not exactly theirs to make. The awareness of blanketing recognizes the value of the components and relationships that brought the blanket to you, and are contained in its folds and layers. You can smell them and feel them. Blanketing is a curiosity for how long a blanket will last, how to mend it, and what it can become next. In these ways blanketing is allowing oneself to be covered in gratitude. Blanketing asks what more can I do to care for and mend my bruised and scarred self, my relationships, and other beings. It joins movements of mutual care, moral kindness, and respect for others and the world itself.”