CANADA 150 – What We Make and What We’re Made Of
Hi! I'm Heather Read, the Rebanks Postdoctoral Fellow in Canadian Decorative Arts. In honour of Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation, I’ll be writing a blog series this year highlighting interesting objects from the Canadian Decorative Arts Collection at the Royal Ontario Museum. With this series, I’ll be talking about some of the furniture, pottery, and glass that are currently on exhibition at the ROM, but I’ll also give you a peek behind the scenes into the parts of this collection that aren’t currently on display. I’ll explore at least one piece from each province and territory throughout the year. Starting in Atlantic Canada, I'll work westward, and then head north.
Mostly in these posts, I’ll be writing about objects that were made by people who settled in Canada, which is the focus of the collection I’m currently researching. When I can, I’ll draw from the expertise of the people who work in the First Nations collections here at the ROM to help round out the complex stories about how people of all backgrounds have made lives for themselves in Canada. In addtion, I'll include a mixture of contemporary and historical objects, and will be linking to other websites and organizations that can give you additional information when I can.
I’m pretty passionate about handmade objects, and am excited to share some of the wonderful things we have in the Canadian collection at the ROM. I hope you'll follow along!
Here are a few sneak peeks at some of the objects I’ll be exploring…
