New Definition of Home Exhibit
Confederation Art Gallery, Charlottetown
October 16, 2025 - Jan 16, 2026.

Whether by necessity or by choice, people today are more frequently finding themselves leaving their familiar surroundings and moving to a new location. It is no longer limited to a particular time in life such as young adults moving from their childhood home for school or job opportunities. Older adults are downsizing and right-sizing or losing their independence; even staying in the same house may not feel like the same home when all the children are gone or a partner is lost.
 The new home may be an exciting and promising development. It could be part of new opportunities, along with new anxieties and challenges. Striking out on one’s own can be quite different than uprooting an entire family, although both can be fulfilling hopes and dreams. Is the new home even that different or is it just the new people, the new friends, or the lack of familiar faces?
 The artist’s practice may have been affected by changes in their contacts or influenced by new neighbours. They may have incorporated local traditional designs or replaced those with elements from new cultures.  The shift may be deliberate or subconscious. 
 Each artist and artisan in this exhibition signals a change or a new reality, a feeling of comfort or loneliness, or of establishing acceptance or acceptance of loss. A new street, a new town, a new continent … welcomed or shunned … smiling faces or backs turned.

 What makes a home? How can we represent our concept of home? 

Curators: Paula Kenny and Linda Burko
The exhibit features 18 Professional PEICC Crafts People and 5 invited guest crafts people.

James Aquilani

When I moved to PEI, I was thrilled to see that beach parties are still a thing! The guitar strings represent the instruments and musicians, and the blue marble represents the ocean. Kitchen parties, an Atlantic Canada tradition, are casual and intimate social gatherings with music, dancing, food and good company. A blast! These pieces capture the kitchen party magic with mixed metals representing the organized chaos of people, pets, food, and instruments; the diamonds and blue bulbs represent the stars and the ocean.

Ruth Aquilani

Canada is my home; Scotland is in my blood. Reading the sentiment that “my heart lies in the land of my ancestors where the thistle grows in the heath,” I wanted to make a thistle quilt. It reminds me of my childhood stays in Scotland, visiting family and exploring the countryside. To me, the scenery of Prince Edward Island is similar to Scotland with green rolling hills, blue blue water and sky, as well as the sense of community. Since moving to PEI, people have been so open and welcoming, and I’ve leaned and shared a lot. This quilt is a tribute to all those wonderful connections made in this beautiful Celtic rich province.

ellen burge

Diversity reflects the transformation of our communities from the cultural identity of the 1950s into vibrant multicultural spaces shaped by immigration. It celebrates the beauty of belonging and the evolving meaning of home in a diverse and inclusive society.

Ashley Anne Clark

Photographs give us a short glimpse into the past. These silhouettes were based on a photo of the artist’s grandparents. This work speaks of our connection to our ancestors but also the fleeting memory of them. It symbolizes the fading past and changing times, as old ways and customs adapt to our way of living in modern society.

Nancy Cole

No matter where we go or where we stay, there is always a special chair waiting. Home can be a place of comfort, familiarity, and contentment.
The old suitcase hidden under a bed at home, and opened after 50 years, revealed photographs … were they deliberately saved or simply forgotten? Our history, recorded in printed images, is so easily lost after only three generations.

Jamie Germaine

I am most at home when at the sea - walking the red sand beaches and swimming in the warm waters of the Island’s south shore. The colours and textures of the shoreline feature prominently in my ceramic work and I bring back techniques and collected items from my travels to incorporate in this work.

Trudy Gilbertson

I left PEI as a wood carver and, almost 30 years later, returned home as a carver of antler and bone, influenced by art and people from Canada’s North to the South Pacific. My work has always featured wildlife, but after years of being homesick for coastal landscapes, I now look to the ocean for inspiration.

Jessica Hutchinson

These pieces were made during one of the driest and hottest summers on record in PEI with wild fires burning in neighbouring provinces. This work explores the fragile boundary between shelter and exposure, safety and loss. The idea of home is increasingly unsettled; the changing climate creating tension between familiarity and disruption.

Arlene MacAusland

In early April, Dad would check his seed germination before planting. Mom would offer an old aluminum foil pie pan that she had been saving for this day. The paper towel was wet and my job was to spread out the seeds. The pan was then set on top of the fridge where it was nice and warm for the seeds to sprout. Dad would count the sprouts at coffee time during the week … and that was home! The summer that I was seven, I spent the days making mud pies on the veranda. I prayed to Mother Earth for a hot sunny day to bake them on old wooden shingles. If I added flour, I could get my dog to eat them. This summer, I stirred a three-year old indigo vat on my front deck. I fed her lime and saki and offerings of white cloth. She will winter in my kitchen … and that is home!

Robert McMillan

I pay homage to those who are settling here on the foundations of those that came before, as they put down roots in Canada and start a new life. These newcomers often settle in the old farmhouses nestled in the island’s rolling hills. As the center of family life, these iconic buildings represent our past and are now being filled with hope for a new beginning, in a country miles away from their own.

Noella Moore

I had the opportunity to learn quilling from Cheryl Simon in 2016, starting with the plain star which I still use when leading a workshop. I enjoy doing snowflakes and the L’nu symbol that means “the people”. Over the years, I designed my own pieces using the eight-pointed star representing the eight nations, as well as experimenting with variations of flowers and animals including the eagle that is sacred and brings good luck. Quilling is a part of who I am, where I feel relaxed and right at home.

Cathy Murchison Krolikowski

When visitors come to our island from the hectic world of large cities, they reimagine what home means. Cities offer opportunities but sometimes rob us of the tranquility that nature brings. Remote work and Covid made people take stock of what is important and look to making their home in a place they may not have considered previously. This little house by the sea represents security and sustenance.

Julia Purcell

The motivation of creating a new artwork can begin with a theme. The initial inspiration for this exhibition did provide soul searching and direction. My long connection to this Island home and my concerns around promoting and preserving a healthy natural environment influences all my work. 

Nora Richard

My ancestors, the Mi’kmaq people, were nomads who moved their homes from place to place, following the fish and clams to store for the long winter. The men fished and hunted, while the women gathered berries, other wild food, and medicinal herbs. The basket that I created - baskets within a basket - is inspired by this tradition. It is designed to gather anything such as berries, nuts, and shells; it is a vessel for collecting and storing supplies for the home for winter. With the false bottom and nested baskets, it is the basket that keeps on giving.

Ayelet Stewart

For the past twenty-five years, this island has been my home - a world apart from the pace of my former life in the bustling city. Here, time slows. The rhythm is quieter, gentler. As an artist, my eye is drawn to the beauty revealed at low tide - glistening shores adorned with ribbons of seaweed and drifting kelp. 

Jamilynn Wilson

When this mug came out of the kiln, I immediately turned it on its side and saw the tale of three potters travelling across land and sea from PEI to NL in search of knowledge and adventure. My journey to NL profoundly transformed my approach to ceramics and reshaped how I view my work, leading me to explore the production of art prints.

Jane Whitten

A calm contentedness comes over me when I smell seaweed … even if it’s rotting, I know I’m home! I’m a wanderer who keeps coming back to the magic of the North Atlantic even though I grew up in inland Australia where the world smelled of warm earth and eucalyptus. The ocean captured me when I spent a year in Maine as a child.

Bette Young

One of my treasured themes in rug hooking is capturing old homesteads – usually vernacular houses and gambrel-roofed barns that were common on PEI in the last century. I created Red Barns to give credit to the families who choose to keep these traditional structures on their homesteads, while they incorporate modern architecture around them. This work pays tribute to the families who move to rural PEI, restoring and building around traditional homesteads, helping preserve the architectural heritage of the countryside.

Invited Guest Crafters:

Paula Kenny
In the early days of European settlement, the majority of Islanders had their homes on the farm, passing from generation to generation. In recent years, often not even one child will carry on the family farm, leaving the countryside littered with derelict barns. Home is now wherever you can find work and opportunity - often in the big city.

Penelope Player

This was originally made for my 13-year-old granddaughter who loves everything black, so different from the soft pastel quilts that I slept under in my Grannie’s back bedroom. The Sawtooth Star pattern became an unexpected metaphor for the complexity and diversity of the world in which my granddaughter and all young people of this generation are making their way.
A group of quilting friends, all smitten with the Jane Stickle quilt from the American Civil War, decided to each make their own ‘Jane’ quilts. A Monday evening sewing circle was formed to share fabric and coach each other in making the blocks. Over three years, joys and sorrows were shared, along with fabric and ideas – and we soared above the limitations of our skill levels. Magic happened there!
Eighteenth century author Jane Austen wrote novels dealing with the precarious position of women in society and their challenges in finding secure and stable homes. Impoverished after her father’s death, Jane, along with her mother and sister, was similarly challenged, finally finding a home provided by a brother at Chawton Cottage. That stability enabled her to write and the ladies to finish the quilt they had been hand-piecing for years. That quilt, so associated with the comfort of home, is now displayed in pride of place at Chawton Cottage, Jane’s final home. My smaller replica quilt is my tribute.

Left to right:
Carolyn Hodges
We find our sense of home and community when we gather to explore creative interests. This quilt is a compilation of blocks made by members of the Modern Quilt Guild. The final piece provides a visual reminder of community and that art can bring people together - it’s all about the connections we make with others.
Jean MacKie
As a military wife, after each of our ten moves, I woke up in a new home, in a new town, thinking of all my new friends I’d yet to meet, in all of those houses. This quilt was made in the place we now call home - more firmly rooted, at last. I reflect fondly upon the many ways in which we have defined and redefined home over the years.
Susan Whitaker
My husband was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. While he slept, I sewed this “mystery quilt-along” not knowing the end product, which reflected our journey through his cancer. I finished the quilt just before he passed; when he saw it, he spoke one word “breathtaking”. When he passed, it changed everything: the way I talked, the way I slept, the way I ate, the way I lived. Our home is now my home.