Cheasley Paterson, Elaine

Elaine Cheasley Paterson holds an MA in Canadian Art History from Concordia University (1999) and a PhD from Queen's University (2003), where she was a SSHRC and FCAR scholar and recipient of the Bader Fellowship in Art History. Her current SSHRC and FQRSC funded research concerns women's cultural philanthropy in early twentieth-century British, Irish and Canadian craft guilds of the home arts movement. She is particularly interested in the Dun Emer Guild, Dublin (founded in 1902 by Evelyn Gleeson and the Yeats sisters), the Compton Potters' Arts Guild (founded in 1895 by Mary Seton Watts), and the Canadian Handicrafts Guild, Montreal (founded in 1905 by Alice Peck and May Phillips). She has presented this research at many international conferences, including in Britain, in Ireland and in the United States. Her writing and teaching are focused on the relationships between material culture and feminist theory, with an emphasis on the decorative arts and craft history. Some of her publications include 'Crafting a National Identity' in The Irish Revival Reappraised (2004); 'Decoration and Desire in the Watts Chapel' Gender and History 17:3 (2005); 'Gender and Canadian Ceramics: Women's Networks' in On the Table: 100 Years of Functional Ceramics in Canada (Gardiner Museum catalogue, 2006); as well as review articles for RACAR, The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, and The Journal of Stained Glass (London). She is on the editorial board of Cahiers metiers d'art - Craft Journal (Montreal), a member of the Centre for the Study of Canadian Women Artists and the Quebec Quilt Registry Project at Concordia. Her curatorial work has focused on contemporary Quebec craft.

My current research is focussed on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century crafts through a comparative analysis of objects made and exhibited as part of the home arts and industries movement in Britain, Ireland and Canada. I am particularly interested in establishing connections among the main umbrella organisations for craft revival in each of these countries, specifically between the internationally known Home Arts and Industries Association, London (1884) and both the Irish Industries Association, Dublin (1886) and the Canadian Handicrafts Guild, Montreal (1905). The home arts movement was organised through the London-based Home Arts and Industries Association, inspired by British art-critic John Ruskin, and supported by William Morris and his followers in both Ireland and Canada (among others).

One objective of this new research is to integrate material devoted to the Canadian craft revival with that from Europe and the United States in order to situate it within a broader context and introduce it to a wider audience. I am also concerned for issues of ethnicity, as they were expressed in such international venues as the world's fairs, as well as for presenting the peasant and working-class experience of the home arts movement and of its social and aesthetic ideals. My aim is to establish the home arts and industries as an international movement, traced through the migration of ideas, of people and of exquisite craft objects.

2011
Participant in the SSHRC-funded workshop Cut on the Bias led by Dr. Kirsty Robertson (University of Western Ontario) and Dr. Kelly Thompson (Fibres, Concordia University), June 2011

2007
Member of team awarded a Concordia University Grant to establish the Centre for the Study of Canadian Women Artists at Concordia University

2006-2013
FQRSC grant: Résurgence des métiers d'art en Grande-Bretagne, en Irlande et au Canada, 1890-1925

2006-2012
SSHRC grant: The Home Arts and Industries as International Movement: The British, Irish and Canadian Instance, 1880-1925

2003
Faculty Research and Development Program Award from Concordia University

2002
Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

2001
Bader Fellowship in Art History from Queen's University

1999
Research Scholarship from the Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l'Aide à la Recherche (FCAR)

2011

• "Emigration and craft revival in nineteenth century Ireland and Canada" presented for CAIS conference Text and Beyond Text in Irish Studies: New Visual, Material & Spatial Perspectives held at the School of Canadian Irish Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, 6 - 9 July 2011
• Chair, with Susan Surette, of Sloppy Craft and Post-disciplinarity: A Critical Engagement for the Universities Art Association Conference at Carleton University, October 2011
  

2010

• Chair, with Gloria Hickey, of the double session on craft, Economy, community and self-expression - Craft and Social Development, for the Universities Art Association Conference at Guelph University, 14-16 October 2010

2007

• "Weaving social reform with Irish revival: The hand-tufted carpets of the Dun Emer Guild, Co. Dublin" presented for the international conference Neo-Craft at NSCAD University, organised by the Canadian Craft Federation as part of the 2007 Year of Craft in Canada.

2006

• Co-organised the international symposium on craft history, Re-Crafting Tradition held at the Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec, November 2006.

2005

• "Researching the Home Arts Movement in Britain, Ireland and Canada." Public lecture for the Queen's University Graduate Colloquium Series, Queen's University, 11 March 2005.

2004

• "Crafting Identity and Selling 'Irishness': Evelyn Gleeson and the Yeats sisters at the Dun Emer Guild." Public lecture for the School for Canadian Irish Studies, Concordia University, 11 November 2004.
• "Political Fabrications: Women's Work at the Dun Emer Guild" presented at Modern Ireland: Her Arts and Culture, American Conference for Irish Studies at the University of Northern Colorado, October 2004.

2003

• Guest lecture on Twentieth-Century Decorative Arts, presented at a charitable function organised by the Montreal branch of the Combined Jewish Appeal, 21 October 2003.
• "Decoration and Desire: The Crafted Space of the Watts Chapel in Compton, Surrey" presented at the Perspectives in Craft History session at the Universities Art Association Conference, November 2003.

2002

• "Homemade Industry: Mary Seton Watts and the Potters' Arts Guild" presented at Art for Life's Sake: A Symposium on Women, Gender, Class and Victorian Cultural Philanthropy at the Southampton Institute, England, November 2002.
• "Enterprising Women Crafting an Irish Identity: The Dun Emer Guild, 1902-1908" presented at Women's History: Irish/Canadian Connections hosted by the Women's Education, Research and Resource Centre, University College Dublin, Ireland and Saint Mary's University, Halifax, August 2002.
• "Crafting a National Identity: The Dun Emer Guild, 1902-1908" presented at The Irish Revival Reappraised, 10th International Conference of the Society for the Study of Nineteenth-Century Ireland, All Hallows College, Dublin, June 2002.
• "The Women of the Dun Emer Guild: Evelyn Gleeson and the Yeats Sisters" presented at Re:Searching Irish Women at the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool, England, March 2002.

2006
Re-Crafting Tradition, at the Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec, Montreal, September to December 2006. This was a major collaborative project I co-organised and which involved an exhibition of contemporary Quebec craft, accompanied by a publication and two-day symposium based on the theme of tradition in craft as discussed by scholars and makers from across Canada.

Since 2000

Undergraduate Courses

• ARTH 400 Advanced Seminar in Art Historical Methods - Special Topic: Curating Craft
• ARTH 400 Advanced Seminar in Art Historical Methods - Special Topic: Arts and Crafts Ideology and Contemporary Craft Practice
• ARTH 398 Special Topics in Art and Society: "Beauty in everyday life" - The Social Reforms of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, Europe and North America, 1850-1925
• ARTH 368 Studies in Contemporary Art/Architecture - Special Topic: Contemporary Western Craft
• ARTH 357 Studies in the History of Craft and the Decorative Arts
• ARTH 352 Studies in the History of Fibre Art
• ARTH 350 Aspects of the History of Ceramic Art
• ARTH 266 Aspects of the History of Fibre Art
• ARTH 264 Aspects of the History of Ceramics
• ARTH 200 Perspectives of Art History

Graduate Courses

• ARTH 614 Examining the Artisan Tradition in North America: The Arts and Crafts Movement in North America (2004)
• ARTH 614 Examining the Artisan Tradition in North America: Current debates and historical craft (Summer 2007)
• ARTH 614 Examining the Artisan Tradition in North America: Institutionalising Craft in Quebec (Summer 2010)
• ARTH 647 Master's-level independent study on historical trends in contemporary Irish art (Summer 2010)
• ARTH 647 Master's-level independent study in Art History on Quebec glass history (Summer 2007)
• ARTH 647 Master's-level independent study for the Department of Religion on the decorative arts in Canadian synagogues (January 2004)
• Doctoral-level independent study in Art History on Berlin Wool Work (Winter 2007)

MA
Emma Frank (in progress)

Christine May (in progress)
Craftivism in Canada: Exploring Identity Through Politically Charged Textiles

Nicole Burisch (in progress)
Performance Craft

Laurie Filgiano (in progress)
Fashion in the Fine Art Museum

Sonya Ocampo Gooding, SIP (in progress)
The Sheelah-na-gig in Contemporary Irish Art

Valérie Coté, MA
Le bijou-sculpture au Québec durant les années 1950-70: le cas de Walter Schluep
Convocation: Fall 2011

Geneviève Pelletier, MA
Intérieurs montréalais, immigration et identité: la domesticité en transition
Convocation: Spring 2011

Katharine Brayley, MA
A Unique Ambition: The Maritime Art Association's Annual Exhibitions 1935-1945
Convocation: Fall 2010

Judith Penney Burton, MA (SIP)
Going With the Flow: The Work and Lives of Contemporary Canadian Fibre Artists
Convocation: Spring 2008

Cinzia Colella, MA
A New Space in Canadian Art: Liminality in the Work of Three Glass Artists: Kevin Lockau, Susan Edgerley, and Brad Copping
Convocation: Spring 2006

PhD
Susan Surette (in progress)
Canadian Ceramic History

Chinatsu Kobayashi, UQAM (in progress)
Co-supervisor with Dominic Hardy

Rosika Desnoyers, Humanities (in progress)
Member of supervisory committee

Marie-Ève Marchand, Université de Montréal (in progress)
Member of Supervisory Committee