University of Alberta Museums Search

The squares which compose each quilt of Gathie Falk's Beautiful British Columbia Thermal Blankets series are heavy canvas, sewn over construction-grade fiberglass insulation, making literal the "thermal" aspect of the title. The blankets are at once intensely personal; each is devoted to domestic still-life and portraits of friends, who are identified in the title of the work. However, as one of her subjects has explained, "the thermal blankets" meaning must not be restricted by the presence of identifiable human beings. Gloria, Ann, Tom, and Huyen are vehicles to a particular set of ideas and forms integral to the works themselves. These whole or fragmented images of friends, like the blossoms and still lifes, derive from Instamatic photos taken, at whim, as records of sociability or of a moment in landscape." (Ann Rosenberg, 1981)