Excerpts from a conversation between the artist Peggy Janicki and the curator on September 15th, 2002

Tell us about your mom's blanket.

My mother's blanket was an amazing surprise. It was a blanket that was put away for... I want to say... since the 70s-- Fifty years! It was gifted out to an extended family member, and that family member just surprised me last spring and said, “I have a gift for you.” I had no idea what she was talking about, because she loves other art mediums. She loves plants and plant dyes. I said [to myself], “Okay, I know this is going to be great. I don’t know what it is.” But out she came with this blanket, and she said, “your mom made this for me, but I want to gift it back to you.” It was a surprise-- a surprise gift. Since then, in my house, I just... because of course, my mother has passed away now..., it was such a gift to strengthen that bond.Now that she’s gone, I have so many questions for her. Now that I am weaving, I have eighty questions for her, but she’s gone. Having this living beautiful swoqw’elh directly from her hands to me... has been...I don’t know how to describe it..., a spiritual gift, a material gift, an engineering gift, an artist gift, a land-based gift. I cannot put words to it, and it keeps giving. If I can say that, it's reflecting on generations. As many folks know, now having lost my father-in-law, we’re just coming up to a year to his passing. Everyone who has lost, you know. What do we want to continue, what do we want to carry on? I feel like weaving is that thing. So this gift was really powerful. 

Tell me about your mother and what she meant to weaving and its continuation. 

My understanding.., is that when she moved down to Chilliwack, she became best friends with Josephine Callie, and with the Coqueletza. I want to say the Coqueletza guild. They would alternate; Josephine’s son talked to me, and they said they would alternate. He said, “my mom and your mom would switch being president and vice president of the guild.” Was a two-year term or a four-year term of the society-- then, they would switch out. So there was a sort of rotating; that my mom would be on this guild in the 60s and 70s. So my understanding of the weaving... it was a real weaving renaissance that was happening in that building. And my mom was part of that. I know that her name in the print would come up as Mary Sutherland or Mary O’Connell, but her maiden name is McKinnon; she’s known by those names. I can’t imagine-- like, when I mention my mom, they know who my mom is. And when I mention her, they are very gracious with me-- if that makes any sense. So when grandma Rena was teaching many women, in the longhouse and in the kitchen, the original swoqw’el. I was one of her grandchildren to come to learn how to weave. My mom... I’m not understanding all that she’s done, but I’m hoping with a little... --what do you call them, evidence? The breadcrumbs she’s left behind: I’m hoping to pick them up. So this large weaving that came back to me was a huge breadcrumb to keep going. 

Tell me about this hat.

It's fun, it's playful, and I feel it's pivotal as a teacher. I’m a teacher, as well, in the school districts of the Frazer Valley, and play is a key feature to learning. I had a Squamish weaver teach at a conference on a flat cardboard loom. Highly transportable, easily taught in classrooms. It's a wonderful way to bring weaving into a K-12 classroom. Having done that for a few years, the toque showed up one day. My husband had come home from hunting one day, and he laid his toque on the counter, and I looked at it, and it was the moment of “oh, that is flat, like the cardboard that we’re weaving on.”  So it took probably four prototypes of how to do a semi-circle: how to warp it properly, and how to weave it, and then to have it go into that half-sphere shape. It took a long time. I love making them, because I can bring them into the longhouse. I can bring them to a conference, and you can have lots of fun with the colors. I quite love the math. When looking at the top of them, I have a moment of happiness. Looking at the top, they look like a Chrysanthemum. 

Tell me about this small item. 

This answers the question: what do weavers do when COVID hits the universe? We stay at home like everybody else, and take online courses from other weavers around the world. She had a course online-- I was excited. Sign me up-- I need to keep my hand busy. Verona, and the Hetet school of Maori art. Once I did the first lesson, and it was a high learning curve, because--if you’re not familiar with the weaving-- there is no loom. I was very lost. It took me a while to figure it out. It's the twinning-- It's the same twinning up that we do. She asked that the materials be 100% cotton-- so there is no stretch--, where I’m used to the stretch of wool weaving-- and it's small. We’re using a small space: no stretch, and no loom. I felt like a real mess. Once I figured it out I started playing. 

Folks may have seen the beaded medallion. Well, I wanted to make a woven medallion. I ended up creating this design, and I wanted to gift it to my auntie, the head of our clan-- we’re the Beaver Clan. It's not obvious, but it's a beaver tail. It has copper-- which is high-status indication-- and dentalium.