For a craft that didn’t even belong in the fine arts category until recently, the embroidery workshop taught by local Sooraya Durgahee on Feb. 27 at the Humboldt & District Gallery was definitely a challenge.
“It was very good and very nice. There were lots of people,” said Durgahee. “I liked the class and the students. I expected to have only three or four, but (the class) was huge.”
Of the 12 that signed up, 11 made it, which were still quite a few for one teacher to handle. This was only Durgahee’s second time teaching after her fabric painting class the week prior.
The workshop began by tracing a pre-drawn design onto a square of fabric and stretching that between two hoops. Then Durgahee went to a couple students at a time and demonstrated the first basic stitch, which is somewhat similar to a backstitch. Just the first step was tough even for the experienced textile students, so the class practiced that one for a while. Durgahee then moved on to show students the chain stitch, which a few claimed was much easier and more fun once they got the hang of it.
“It was really interesting what Sooraya was teaching us and it was just challenging enough that people didn’t get bored with it, but not so much that people weren’t able to grasp it,” said Jean Price, the museum and gallery’s program co-ordinator. “I thought I’d know what I was doing. I hadn’t expected it to be so different technically than what I’d been doing in the past and I think a lot of people were a bit surprised by that.”
Although Durgahee has a certificate in embroidery, her mother first taught the craft to her when she was 18 as part of a family tradition. Now she’s teaching her daughter, Aasiyah, the same art.
“I think we’re really lucky to have Sooraya because that’s a really unique skill that she has and her work is so beautiful,” said Price. “We’re really lucky that she’s in the community and able to share that. I don’t think there are many communities in Saskatchewan that can provide a Mauritian embroidery workshop, so that’s quite cool.”
The workshop is part of a Saskatchewan Arts Board creative partnership grant that provided funding for the museum and gallery. It gives fair pay to the artists and provides the materials while participants are able to experience something new for free. All of the pieces that are being produced through these workshops will be put on display in a temporary exhibit, provided the participants are willing to part with them for a short time.
This workshop in particular was unique because it’s not often people get to experience it since it wasn’t really considered art for a long time.
“I think the textile arts and a lot of craft arts have for a long time not been necessarily classified with fine art because they’ve traditionally been the domain of women and they were home based crafts rather than fine painting,” said Price. “They were things that people who weren’t necessarily among the aristocracy or the rich could do … but there’s been a movement in the past little while to begin to recognize the value and the importance of those sort of craft arts and traditional arts.”
