It was a cold Saturday morning and George Lippert Park had not yet woken up. A pick-up hockey game at the rink would soon provide the soundtrack for the neighbourhood, artist Brenda Mabel Reid told me when they arrived for our walk.
Our destination was the Spurl Line trail, a multi-use stretch running alongside the rail line.
“This is our main connection between Kitchener and Waterloo that we’ve always used since being here,” Reid said.
The trail provides more than just a path. Reid has a community garden plot with their partner in Uniroyal Goodrich Park. They often come to the trail to watch trains. And the trail has supplied materials for their art.
“I was really interested in dying fabric with local plants, which I actually harvested from the Spurl Line Trail,” Reid said.
Reid is an interdisciplinary artist. They started textile work, which continues to be a focus of artistic exploration.
“I am working across and working through and combining multiple disciplines,” they said. “I have an insatiable energy for learning and trying new things.”
“I’ve made several what I would call weird quilts,” Reid said. They explained their use of a variety of mediums including construction materials, cough drop wrappers and paper.
“I made an argument [about] quilts as home, quilts as architecture, and now I’m really looking at quilts as the body,” they said.
Reid is days away from opening their newest exhibit, Lead Lines, an exploration of the life of their grandmother and their family history. They interviewed their grandmother’s five children, uncovering information that was surprising, conflicting, and at times devastating.
Reid used this information to construct five quilts made of washi paper to accompany the audio installation based on the interviews.
“I love printmaking, and I wanted to bring print and quilting together,” they said.
Themes of comfort and discomfort converse through Reid’s work.
“There is something going on in my art practice around talking about hard things through soft media that I find is working,” Reid said.
We stopped at the Café Pyrus Outpost for some comfort of our own in the form of warm drinks before continuing along the trail. Public space and land use are important to Reid. They grew up on a farm near Lake Erie. They moved to the KW region to study architecture, and their master’s thesis was a community quilt project with nearly 600 participants.
“We were just outside all the time,” Reid said. “My summer job was picking berries on a neighbouring farm. Best job I’ve ever had.”
“I’ve been interested in community activated art for a while,” Reid said. “[Community] connects you to a place and makes it…worth living there.”
Last year Reid exhibited Underlay, a public-installation modular quilt piece where they invited participants to experience collective napping.
“Engaging in rest in public space…[is] an incredibly politicized thing,” Reid said.
“Public space has such a political bend to it,” they said. “I’m interested in…the nuance and politics of who is allowed and who isn’t.”
We veered off the trail to see their garden plot, dormant for the winter. A friendly dog greeted us, its owners clearing the frozen storm water pond for skating.
“[The space] is well used,” Reid said. “Lots of people taking good care of it.”
Reid’s educational background provided a foundation for their art, imparting a practice of determination and rigor, but that rigor can lead to a grind culture where pace is overlooked in favour of productivity.
“I’m, ironically, burnt out from doing a nap tour,” Reid said. “It turns out napping is very hard work.”
Once Lead Lines is launched, Reid plans to prioritize rest and joy.
“I’m a big fan of napping in public space,” they said. “I feel like more of us should actively and politically take up space to nap in public. And there is some truly silly stuff coming up [for me] which I’m very excited about.”
Lead Lines runs from Feb. 4 to Mar. 30, 2025, at Homer Watson House and Gallery.
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