In the 1930s Ruby Enns Wiebe created several small diaries for her daughter Lorna, my mother. These diaries have great significance in both the content of family history and in their relationship to my voice as an artist. The diaries were given to me when I was in my earliest investigation of the dress form as an alternate voice. I was not particularly interested in them at the time. I was, however, very interested in a feminist connection of my work to other artists who were dealing with clothing as subject. I missed the significance of the diaries for many years. The connection between the dairies and the artwork seems obvious in hindsight.
I would like to celebrate the creativity and imagination of my grandmother. Not only did she produce the small diary represented here, but she was a prolific journal keeper and created numerous volumes of family history from 1930 into the 1970s. In her quiet domestic voice she compiled drawings, poems, photographs, news clippings and other remembrances. Her discipline and consistency were truly admirable.