Dear Cheryl…

Description

Dear Cheryl…
sequins, blanket
72 x 80″ 2017
Photo by Leif Norman

Value: $3,000.00

Kristin Nelson

After seeing the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq’s call to the community to help the Gallery replace its 1971 building elevators, artist Kristin Nelson stepped up by donating Dear Cheryl… for auction.

All auction proceeds will go towards replacing the Gallery’s much-needed passenger and freight elevators. Help lift up your WAG-Qaumajuq by participating in the auction of this fitting multi-media piece. Thank you for your support!

Artist statement:

I discuss my work through an investigation of the value of labour as seen through a disability studies lens, while focusing on labour’s inherent relationship to the body’s inevitable disintegration in time.

Cheryl Lashek is a professional engineer who worked at the Province of Manitoba from 2011 to 2023 as Director of Technical and Inspection Services. Her signature can be found in elevators, on permits across Manitoba. Her name, resting on the tips of Winnipeg’s collective consciousness. This ‘feeling of knowing’ becomes a unity, or meme, borrowing its form from the seemingly insignificant document. In art, Cheryl Lashek has also been the subject of a painting, a song, a tattoo, and a CBC podcast.

Dear Cheryl… is a de-commissioned moving blanket, formerly belonging to artist Keith Oliver. The blanket was stitched by hand, spelling out the words “Dear Cheryl Lashek, let us down easy”, in plastic sequins (some of which glow in the dark). It was created over several months, before moving to a more physically accessible studio space in 2017. Dear Cheryl… is a plea to those in places of power; architects, politicians, policy makers and engineers who attend to the physical machinations of our environment.