How Jean Wade’s mixed media work draws on her spiritual and craft heritage

African-Canadian artist Jean Wade knows that history is embedded in even the smallest objects: just ask her about her button collection.

“I’ve been collecting buttons my whole life,” she said during a conversation in New York last month. “Buttons seem like such a simple thing, but they’re an invention that changed the world.”

Many of Wade’s pieces over the decades are decorated with buttons, symbols of thrift and ingenuity that date back to her family’s South American roots. They are just one of many repurposed materials found in Wade’s work, providing a physical resonance to the myriad Black histories represented in her work. These gestures are deeply personal. Wade was born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1952 to a Black Canadian father with ancestry in the American South and a European-Canadian mother. Her childhood was deeply influenced by the imagery and culture of her paternal grandmother and grandmother, who helped raise Wade, and the local African Methodist Episcopal Church (her paternal family came to Canada with the church).

For over 40 years, Wade has translated her paintings, textiles, sculptures, and multimedia works into an aesthetic and history rooted in the spirituality of African immigrant practices.

Wade is currently having his first New York solo exhibition at Richard Saltoun Gallery.Coloured entrance” is a sweeping exhibition of her work spanning the 1980s to today (on view until 22 June). The exhibition follows Richard Saltoun’s presentation at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in the UK, as well as her own retrospective. Soul Power It will be held at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada in 2021. The retrospective will soon travel to the Hamilton Art Museum in her hometown (June 27, 2024 – January 5, 2025).

We recently caught up with Wade to share some insight into her enduring and far-reaching practice.

Tell us about the title “Colored Entrance,” which comes from a segregation-era sign. This is your first solo exhibition of your work in New York, so I’m curious to know what work you’ve included. For audiences coming to this exhibition, what is important for them to know about Canadian history, and how has that influenced your work?

I am well aware that I am the first black female artist to have a solo exhibition at the Vancouver Art Museum in its 100-year history. I have always called Canada the home of polite racism.

Slavery existed in Canada for almost 200 years. The oldest black community in Canada, Africville, Nova Scotia, was founded hundreds of years ago. In the title of my show, “Colored Entrance,” I specifically used the American spelling of “colored.” I was thinking specifically of these signs. Canada had a similar history of racism, but there were no signs.

But I do remember my grandmother taking me for walks around town and saying, “Don’t go in there. Stay away.” When my parents first dated, there were parks and movie theaters they couldn’t go to together. That was just as true in Canada as it was in the United States. You just didn’t hear about it.

Here is a fact that may surprise you: In 1948, when Afrikaners went around the world in search of the perfect apartheid system, they adopted our reservation system and passcard system, but called them homelands instead of reservations. This is a history that we in Canada are still coming to terms with.

This is a small exhibition that looks back at work from your decades-long career. Can you tell us about some of the earlier works shown in the exhibition?

Have you heard of the women’s rock festival Lilith Fair? I was the artist in residence there for four summers while I was touring. I would paint old wooden plates and bowls that I found along the way and put them in my booth. OK Lucky 8 Ball – Good Luck OK (Created in 1991, “8 Ball” depicts an 8 ball surrounded by symbols in the middle and is one of the oldest works in the exhibition.

It is older than that Skull head artist on the beach ((1988)—Richard [Saltoun] It was recently discovered. I found this piece while preparing for another exhibition. I’ve done a lot of work over the years. I haven’t seen this piece since it was painted in probably 1988. I live in Vancouver and this painting depicts Stanley Park and Artists Beach, Third Beach. I love it there because it’s where the forest meets the ocean and it’s a place where artists congregate.

What is the symbolism of the 8-ball that recurs in many of your works?

At one point, the 8-ball represented a weight of heroin, but it also means “behind the 8-ball,” in the sense of being unlucky or in a bad position.

The exhibition also includes panels from the textile series “Breathe,” abstract embroidery inspired by patterns from women quilters in Gee’s Bend, Alabama.

I’ve wanted to embroider for a long time and I was also interested in the old quilting tradition. I started making pieces and I wanted them to look like abstract paintings. It’s called “Breathe.” One night I had a dream about Eric Garner, who was killed for selling cigarettes. All he kept saying was, “I can’t breathe.” To me, that’s what black people feel every day. I just want to breathe.

I heard that this installation was on display at the Vancouver Art Gallery recently. What was it like?

Yes, the most fun part was when I was sitting in the VAG one day in the room where “Breathe” is on display. Nobody knew who I was. Two older women came in and one of them said, “Oh, Mary, here’s a room full of paintings.” And she walked over and said, “Oh, Mary! Sewing!”

The exhibition also includes a version of your installation “Epiphany” (1994-present), which premiered at the first Johannesburg Biennale at Africaus in 1995. The installation features crosses made from found materials and thrift store finds. Can you tell us about this installation? What draws you back to this symbol?

This is a question about spirituality and the history of spirituality. I grew up with very positive experiences of Christianity in the Black church; they were all part of my family. But as I got older, I started reading about the history of Christianity, especially the history around the slave trade. I’m fascinated by how enslaved African people brought their own spiritual practices to this region and incorporated them into Christianity. In my church, African spiritual practices were very prevalent, like kissing the bodies of the dead.

So I developed an exploration of the cross and its spiritual practice. The cross is a universal symbol across many cultures, indigenous cultures. It can be a symbol of man, of humanity. Some of the crosses in the installation are quite old, some are relatively new. I thought I had given up on making crosses, but then I felt called to make crosses.

Your work mostly uses found and recycled materials, especially buttons, crucifixes and even your latest piece, the Memory Jug. Can you tell us about this?

My grandmother and great-grandmother were black women from the American South. In black communities, nothing goes to waste. As I was growing up, I was fascinated by my grandmother’s button collection. I’ve always been completely fascinated by anything that I can be creative with. I started adding shell buttons to my Memory Jug pieces. Shells are a memorial to the Middle Passage ocean voyage. In the old slave cemeteries, they would leave shells on their graves. Sometimes I look at these old shell buttons and realize that someone made them by hand. It’s important for me to be reminded of these hand gestures.

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