Solo exhibition at Homer Watson House & Gallery, Kitchener
February 04 – March 30, 2025
Curated by Sheila McMath

Gallery Hours:
Tuesday-Saturday: 10 am – 4 pm
Sunday: 12 pm – 4 pm
Monday: Closed

Artist Statement

Leadline: a nautical surveying tool made of lead and rope, used to measure water depth and collect floor samples.

Lead Lines is an installation of audio, print-based paper quilts and furniture that explores multigenerational family dynamics and intergenerational gifts, trauma, and memory. The project stems from the queer urge to know and love oneself, specifically within complex family dynamics. I am reaching into the depths of familial memory to learn about my late grandmother, Marion Joy Reid. Who is this person I am connected to? Who is the quilter, the mother, the daughter, the twin, the grandmother, the friend, the original family glue? It’s taken me over twenty years since her death to ask these questions. 

Using the quilts Marion made in her later life as familial leadlines, I interviewed her five children in their homes. This was an uncomfortable and, at times, devastating process of receiving oral histories within a family full of silence. It informed me as much about my grandma as it did about who I am: a non-binary artist who unintentionally created an art practice with a quilted centre. 

A leadline produces a single-point data reading, and it is the cartographer’s job to interpret it and understand its relation to other data points. They ultimately strive to create a map of something they cannot experience. Lead Lines is an act of translation, transformation, and transfusion. The installation echoes these three parts: audio, translucent paper quilts, and furniture. The audio work explores the incomplete and sometimes contradictory memories tilled up within the family while the quilts reflect versions of my grandmother as translated through two generations. Viewers are welcome to sit on the furniture to embody the work. 

Acknowledgements

With immense gratitude, Brenda Mabel Reid would like to thank their family–Jeff, Scott, Steve, Colleen, and Bonnie–for their participation and vulnerability.

They would also like to thank the following people for their role in the project: Jo El-dik – Artist Assistant; Sheila McMath – Curator; Julie Hall – Project Management Support; Jacob Irish – Audio Technician; Geoff Martin – Writing Coach; Matt McInnes – Letterpress Support; Claudelle – Therapist; Brendan Lacy – Supportive Spouse.

This project was financially supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Photos by Toni Hafkenscheid