Heidi Gardner and Peter Gardner, a husband-and-wife artist duo, recently visited the Pathfoot Building with their peacemakers loom
The loom consists of a 181cm in diameter, 104cm high, circular, wooden French knitting loom. Bringing together elements of contemporary art practice, craftivism and Christian spiritual accompaniment, the installation focusses on peacemaking primarily at the personal and relational level, as a response to the conflict we all encounter within our lives and the wider world.
Over the course of a week, visitors were invited to join the artists in a repetitive, simple action of knitting and building peace through the sharing of many small actions and kind words. This shared action produced a single textile piece, symbolic of the conversations and the temporary community of peacemakers created around the loom. This piece has now been used to wrap the ‘Blue Boy’ sculpture in front of the Pathfoot Building.
Heidi and Peter, working under the name Gardner & Gardner, have built up their contemporary art practice in site-specific installation over two decades and work out of a studio in Glasgow, while combining this with Peter's position as the ordained Church of Scotland minister to the visual arts communities of Glasgow