Award-winning textile artist, Alisa McRonald, holding a sample of her art.
“It’s in my DNA to work with textiles. The medium just always resonated with me, and it feels right,” said Alisa McRonald, an award-winning artist who focuses on yarn, woven, and punch needle pieces.
McRonald has been recognised both nationally and internationally for her approach to art. Her work is currently on exhibit at Kitchener City Hall’s Rotunda Gallery.
After learning the basics from her mother and her grandmother, McRonald took her skills to the big stage. She left her home in Guelph, Ontario in the late 1990s, and continued her journey through the United States and Japan.
She lived in the United States for some 13 years, and it was during that time she was invited to Japan by a fellow artist, where they collaborated on interactive pieces that would be featured in Harper’s Bazaar Japan.
Her story did not finish in Japan. McRonald eventually moved back to Canada and began receiving more recognition for her work.
‘The Creep’ by Alisa McRonald is made of one hundred per cent recycled materials, including old shirts she found thrifting.
“I could say I won an award,” she recalled her experience at Toronto’s Outdoor Art Fair in 2020, “it was a huge honour because that award came from sort of my first, when I first stepped into weaving. So right around the time I was making ‘the Creep’ and stuff like that.”
Back home, McRonald began doing residencies in Toronto, Ontario, and had pop-ups in the Drey Gallery, the Toronto Reference Library, the Interior Design Show Prototype Exhibition, and the Drake Hotel.
“When we work, we produce output. It’s important to us to let the artists show their output to the world,” said Karoline Varin, Program Administrator for Kitchener’s Arts and Creative Industries, “the criteria [to be featured in the gallery] is high-quality work. You can tell she is an artist who has been doing this for a while.”
Varin is a fellow artist who primarily focuses on oil and hot wax painting. “We don’t often get textile artists; we always get a lot of painters and photographers. So, one of the things was [McRonald’s exhibit] is interesting because it can show a different medium.”
To have their art featured in the Rotunda Gallery, artists must apply for a bi-monthly exhibit. Varin pointed out that the citizen council that selected McRonald’s work was impressed with the story of her art and the exposure of a new medium to the public.
While her fairytale artwork currently lives in the Rotunda Gallery, McRonald has already planned to host more workshops to teach her unique perspective on art. “I’m holding [a workshop] Oct. 4 in Toronto at the Craft Council on Queen Street, and we’re doing punch needle.”
“I love storytelling. I love fairytales and imagining sort of what all those different beings might look like,” said McRonald, “there’s stories, how they function, all that kind of stuff.”
Her exhibit will be displayed until the end of Oct. 2025.
