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Welcome to our News & Archives Pages. You can review various articles of interest by the year on the left menu
“ RUG YARNS” NEWS LETTER APRIL 16 2011
Follow the link above and download our April Newsletter
For more news and updates - Visit our Online Blog!
We are happy to be able to provide additional information, news and research on our Word Press Blog Please visit
http://hookedrugmuseumnorthamerica.wordpress.com
Museum Group Launched FaceBook Page !
Engagingfans onlinewill become much easier as the group has launched a new Facebook page that highlights many of the images and information available on the museum website. An Events calendar and discussion forums are part of the strategy to connect with people from around the world.
Visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chester-NS/Hooked-Rug-Museum-of-North-America-Located-in-Nova-Scotia/194367739394
Canada Helps in place to support project fundraising.
Visit our new Canada Helps Site to make an easy tax deductible donation of support for Canadian Residents. This great site allows users to create custom giving pages that supports many fine charities.
USA and International Supporters may use our PayPal option to make a secure online donation of any amount they choose.
Thank you to the many who are voting in the Aviva Community Fund contest.
Follow this link
Noah's Ark is coming to Nova Scotia as a future permanent exhibit in the developing Hooked Rug Museum North America project at Hubbards/Queensland. See the attached brochure in Adobe PDF( 7-MB download)
HRMNA Board Chair Tom Murdoch confirmed today that the major work of art which was created by the leading lady of rug hooking in the United States- the late Mary Sheppard Burton of Maryland, and her fellow artist Leonard Feenan has been donated to the Museum project after a brief tour of several centers in the United States and one display at Georgetown,Ontario.
He said it was one of many examples of how rug hooking seniors throughout North America have taken the initiative in helping save the long slighted and endangered heritage of the craft and art. Last summer it was unanimously confirmed that a library/archives research center of North America rug hooking history will be located in the newly developing facility.
It is being sponsored by the international Pearl K., McGown Guild.
Mr Murdoch also indicated that a Museum design team had been working with the donors to create a special gallery within the 8,750 sq.ft. museum to accommodate the Noah's Ark gift which is expected to be a major audience draw when the facility opens its doors, hopefully in 2011.
Sell out audiences have enthused over the massive display which measures six feet in length, five in height and three feet wide and includes a menagerie of more than 120 hand hooked animals ( and Noah) . The animals were designed by artist Leonard Feenan and hand-hooked by more than 20 rug hookers from both Canada and the United States. It was recently featured in the national RUG HOOKING magazine.
Two officials of the Hooked Rug Museum Board , Suzanne Conrod, Founding Director and Sherry Chandler, Treasurer/Director, both of Chester are in Georgetown, Ontario to formally accept the amazing gift from Mr Feenan and representatives of Mary Sheppard Burton's familly on Tuesday evening during a week- long display of the exhibit by the Georgetown Rug Hooking Guild.
Mrs Conrod will also announce at the formal transfer of the exhibit that the late Mrs Burton will be the second appointee to the Museum's Rug Hooking Hall of Fame and that donor Leonard Feenan will be permanently designated as a Patron.
Mrs Burton herself had recently donated the major gift to the developing rug hooking heritage Museum in Nova Scotia and had planned on making the formal presentation but passed away in August at the age of 87. Several members of her family along with Mr Feenan will be in Georgetown for the ceremony on Tuesday evening. The deceased was active in rug hooking all her life and had a heartfelt support for the artistry of rug hooking which had evolved to a fine art stage from a utilitarian folk-art. Her work hangs in major United States galleries including a major collection in the American Folk Art Museum of the Library of Congress.
Nova Scotia's leadership in preserving the heritage of the earliest art form to have been introduced in North America has received overwhelming support in a unique Hands Across the Border effort which has already resulted in the identification and acquisition through purchase and donation of long lost heritage materials and archival documentation which are already rewriting rug hooking history.
The Museum's first research paper has been recently published in book form and is being sold as a fund raiser to advance the project. Titled Rug Art-" RESCUED FROM OBLIVION" it relates how Museum researchers salvaged 550 pieces of original pen and ink art work from the basement of the 1892 Garrett rug pattern factory in New Glasgow and made a second significant discovery of 350 handcut paper patterns that were previously unknown.
A search is underway for their artist and possible origins in New Brunswick since the MYSTERY PATTERNS as they are designated are the earliest commercial rug patterns known in Canada - and possibly the world.
Chair's 2010 New Year's Message
On behalf of our Honorary Chair, Board of Directors, Directors at Large, Volunteers/ Co-ordinators/ Patrons and Consultants I offer our sincerest best wishes for this Holiday Season!
 While economic conditions continue to test everyones stamina, it is truly gratifying to see our International museum come to fruition with the acquisition of our future home in Queensland, Nova Scotia.
This was a herculean task that simply would not have been achievable without the continued dedication of all our donors and volunteers throughout the United States and Canada - whose devotion, persistence and much needed financial support is ensuring that HRMNA continues to evolve into reality.
Our Board is grateful to each and every one of you!
In comparative terms, the loyalty and moral stamina by which HRMNA continues to nourish evolution is perhaps parallel to the craft of Rug Hooking; in-and-of-itself derived from tough and challenging economic times.
It is an understatement to suggest fostering the establishment of a museum (let alone one of international stature) requires dedicated resources this has hit home with the reality we must now:
- Acquire necessary financial contributions to reinforce this process
- Add personnel in support of our continued evolution (Board/ Directors at Large/ Volunteers)
We are coping with both prerequisites by instigating significantly more discipline; fully realizing the respective dire need - thus eager to strengthen our very modest infrastructure by adding personnel and a determined focus to enhancing financial strength such that we may continue to excel.
Above realities aside, while 2009 has been a tough and challenging year for every one surprisingly; despite all the financial strain and chaos; 2009 has been one of exceptional growth for the Hooked Rug Museum of North America (HRMNA).
I propose HRMNA is perhaps one of very few (if any) museums globally to achieve purchase of a new home under such trying circumstances.
Similarly, is our new web site!
Your contribution - whether in the form of comments/ hooked rug art work or - financially, are most welcome and while still in development, offer the initial site: www.hookedrugmuseumnovascotia.org
Recognizing our escalating, global reach - for such stellar growth and advancement, wherever you may reside in the world; we are truly and most sincerely grateful to all who have supported HRMNA.
May 2010 allow us ALL - to continue to aspire to new levels of collaboration, with our museum and otherwise!
Tom Murdoch,
Chair, Hooked Rug Museum of North America
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