Article by Jane Tisdale

L
ABELS PROVIDED BY the Canadian Handicrafts Guild were sewn onto woven items made at the Mount Allison Handicraft Guild in Sackville, New Brunswick. An unused roll of these labels was recently discovered during research for an exhibition at the Owens Art Gallery about the history of the Applied Arts program at Mount Allison University. This roll of labels is the only known item that remains from the guild.

In 1931, Elizabeth McLeod, Head of the Art Department at the Ladies’ College at Mount Allison University, organized a guild for art students to sell their work. The Art Department and the guild were housed within the Owens Art Gallery at Mount Allison University. The guild soon became a ‘co-operating institution’ affiliated with the Canadian Handicrafts Guild.

Excerpted from Fall/Winter 2015 Ornamentum. Click here to subscribe.

Jane Tisdale is Fine Arts Conservator/Exhibition Curator at Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, in Sackville, New Brunswick.


This roll of labels was recently displayed in the exhibition
All Things Useful and Artistic- Applied Arts at Mount Allison University 1906-1960 at the Owens Art Gallery in Sackville, NB.

Each individual label is 3 x 7cm, with gold embroidery thread on burgundy taffeta ribbon. A woven item with one of these labels sewn onto it has never been found.
Photograph: Jane Tisdale