"Pumping Water" (William Kurelek, 1976)

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In 1976, 23 Canadian artists and sculptors were each invited to submit preliminary drawings for a tapestry in an edition of 25. William Kurelek was one of those artists. Kurelek’s art shows a lifelong obsession with human activity. Kurelek is anxious to convey intensely the feelings involved in work and play, especially work. He depicts people hauling sheaves to the threshing machine, fighting a barn fire, cutting away pieces of snow-crusted haystack, dynamiting a log jam. He also shows people at play: fishing, making toy water wheels during the spring thaw, making whistles out of dogwood branches, and many other activities.