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The Black Gold Tapestry The Black Gold Tapestry is a narrative work of textile art that documents the history of oil, its discovery and exploitation, and its impact on the environment. The Tapestry had its inaugural exhibition at the Glenbow Museum (https://www.glenbow.org/) in Calgary, Alberta from October 2017 to May 2018. Further exhibitions have been at Esplanade Arts & Heritage Centre, Medicine Hat, Alberta (https://www.esplanade.ca/) from March 22, 2021 to September 11, 2021, and between September 9, 2023 and February 11, 2024 the Tapestry was part of a group exhibtion at the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas. . In 2024 the Tapestry will be displayed at the MAAS in Boston, Massachusettes from June 27 to December 8 (https://www.maam.massart.edu/exhibitions).

Inspiration for and Creation of the Tapestry
Inspired in part by the medieval Bayeux Tapestry, the Black Gold Tapestry reproduces the dimensions of the 11th century work, measuring 220 feet (67.05 metres) in length. The Tapestry comprises eight panels, each of which is 36 inches in height. The first six panels are 30 feet long with the seventh measuring 24 feet (7.3 metres), and the final eighth panel measuring 16 feet (4.9 metres).

The Black Gold Tapestry was entirely hand stitched by Canadian artist Sandra M Sawatzky, and took nine years (over 17,000 hours) to complete. It uses 69 colours of hand-dyed silk/wool embroidery thread stitched onto a flax linen background. Sawatzky employed the same stitches to create the Black Gold Tapestry as those used by the Anglo Saxon seamsters who stitched the Bayeux Tapestry. Four distinct stitches were employed to create the work: Stem stitches outline shapes; Satin stitches sew parallel lines of thread across the linen background, covering it completely; Couching stitches hold the thread down by sewing cross threads; finally, Stab stitches fix intersections of long stitches in place with a single stitch.

The Tapestry's eight panels are all divided into a central narrative frieze with upper and lower borders.



The central frieze comprises a series of historical vignettes tracing the story of oil, beginning in the Mesozoic Era when most of the world's oil reserves were first formed, and ending, in the final panel, with images of both the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the development of renewable energy technologies. The upper and lower borders contain a multitude of dinosaurs as well as details which provide further elaboration of the vignettes contained in the central frieze.

Reception and Media Interest
Since its inaugural exhibition, the Tapestry has attracted considerable interest from the textile arts to the energy sector. See, for example: ; ;, and