• born in 1942 in Madona, Latvia
• immigrated to Australia in 1949; immigrated to Canada in 1969
• B.A. in French, Sydney University, Australia; courses at University of British Columbia and Douglas College (textiles)

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Inese Birstins's interest in working with textiles stems directly from her Latvian heritage in which working with fabrics, such as the traditional embroidery she learned as a child, was emphasized (Birstins, 1998). Producing life-sized figures out of layers of felt, works like Fragments (1982-83) reflect her fascination with embodiments of metamorphosis. Suspending her felted bodies in the semi-conscious state prior to sleep, the artist explores the time when an individual's consciousness is most susceptible to change. The felt skin of these figures is symbolic of what the artist considers the psychological barrier and protective covering that people erect to shield themselves yet which ultimately discourages true communication and real human connections. "There is an inherent contradiction in the soft, fuzzy felt, which suggests both skin and covering wrap. There is a fragility in this envelope which speaks about both vulnerability and protection, about the wish to be 'open to the other' and about the real fear of harm resulting from that very openness" (Daina Berzins, 1989). Birstins has explained that she thinks of the work as "specifically about the difficulty of communicating one’s 'being', of sharing it with an 'other'. I wonder about the almost-impossibility of ever really knowing the 'other'--and, so, of ever being known by them. What, then, can we do for each other, as opposed to to each other, in the face of even greater unknowns?" (1989). In 1977-78 Birstins was the President of the Mission Spinners' and Weavers' Guild in Mission, British Columbia. In 1979 she visited Poland for three weeks during which time she went to museums and the studios of Polish textile artists. Between 1980 and 1987, she held the positions of Assistant, Associate, and finally Studio Head/Artistic Director of the Fibre Department, Visual Arts, at The Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta. In 1989 Birstins was appointed coordinator of the Triangle Gallery, a public gallery in Calgary. She has taught in the Sculpture, Ceramics and Fibres Department at Concordia University (Montréal) and at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. She was guest curator of Contemporary Fibre at the Muttart Conservatory, in Edmonton, Alberta and Wearable Works at the Edmonton Art Gallery in 1987.

Casa de Ideias, Uberlãndia, Brazil

Twining Gallery, New York, New York

Fifth International Biennial of Miniature Textiles
Savaria Museum, Szombathely, Hungary

Muttart Conservatory, Edmonton, Alberta

Berry, Suzanne. "Thoughts on the Birstins-Pixley exhibition." Centreletter (September 1983): n.p.

Berzins, Daina. Felt Contradictions. São Paulo, Brazil: Museu de Arte Contemporãnea da Universidade de São Paulo, 1989.

Constantine, Mildred. Inese Birstins & Anne Flaten Pixley. Banff, Alberta: Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre School of Fine Arts, 1983.

---, and Jack Lenor Larsen. The Art Fabric: Mainstream. New York, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1981.

Côté-Sirois, Manon. "Un évènement d'importance en art textile à San Francisco." Cahiers (Autumn 1981): n.p.

Fibre Art: Hands across the Border. Buffalo, New York: Goldome Center, 1987.

Fifth International Biennial of Miniature Textiles. Szombathely, Hungary: Savaria Museum 1984.

Gustafson, Paula. "Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia: Weaving smorgasbord." Canada Crafts (February/March 1987): n.p.

Ribbins, Scott. Feltmaking: Four major installations. Burlington, Ontario: Burlington Cultural Centre, 1986.

Rockford Art Museum. About Fibre. Rockford, Illinois: Rockford Art Museum, 1988.

Runge, Janis. Embodied Mind - Collaborative Structures. Calgary, Alberta: Muttart Gallery, 1983.

Shefrin, Elizabeth. "Notes on a blue theme exhibits fabric art." Kinesis (October 1982): n.p.

Small Works in Fiber: The Mildred Constantine Collection. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993.

Wanke, Angelika. Inese Birstins - Installation. Alma, Québec: Langage Plus, 1985.