Wheat weaving ‘almost had a life of its own’ for Joy Silzer

By Jonathan Hamelin

Two wheat dolls exchange flowers.
Photo by Jonathan Hamelin

         Joy Silzer has always thought one of the most beautiful images is a wheat field flowing in the wind almost like waves on the ocean. Farmers often judge a crop based on the production it yields, but almost every wheat crop helps Silzer stockpile material to fuel her passion.

         The 64-year-old spent over 20 years of her life wheat weaving: taking handfuls of grain and forming them into pieces of art. Silzer quit almost 10 years ago, but her collection can still be found all over the world. She “worked a lot of magic,” says Gail Mergen, general manager and assistant curator of the world-renowned Shurniak Art Gallery in Assiniboia.

         Silzer lives in Mossbank, a town of just under 500 in south-central Saskatchewan. As she sits at her kitchen table discussing her work, evidence of her passion is displayed everywhere: sunbursts brace the walls, the coffee table is partially made of wheat and in cupboards there are wheat hearts and little wheat dolls fishing, dancing and playing the banjo.

         “I think I express the beauty of the prairies through my work,” Silzer says. “Wheat weaving almost had a life of its own. A lot of my adult life I’ve been alone, and the straw has been what’s fulfilled me. As corny as that sounds, that’s what it is.”

         Straw is the stem of wheat. On the Prairies, wheat is a resource readily available. Silzer was inspired by the Prairies long before they provided her with the material for her craft, though. Silzer says she wasn’t an artistic person growing up, but her affinity to the Prairies made wheat weaving a natural choice when she did get involved in art. Silzer’s interest in wheat weaving had been piqued in 1979 by a piece of wheat weaving artwork she received from some friends who had received it from relatives visiting Norway. At the time, Silzer was married with children and living on a farm over three miles west of Mossbank. Silzer says she was “obsessed from the beginning” with wheat weaving, noting that when she got the first piece, she soaked it in a tub of cold water, unfolded it and took pictures and drawings, trying to understand how it could work. As Silzer explains, this one scene is an example of what “made [her] different than other wheat weavers:” her dedication to the craft.

         Silzer credits a story about the House Blessing she heard early in her wheat weaving career for inspiring her to go even further. The earliest beginnings of wheat weaving are tied to the House Blessing, a unique piece that brought health, happiness, and prosperity. Farmers would take the last few stalks from their field and weave it into a pattern of honour. They would give it to a fellow farmer as a gift and then stay and help with harvest. At a craft show in Saskatchewan, Silzer met a 98-year-old woman who had been brought to the show with her senior centre for some entertainment. When the elder saw a House Blessing on Silzer’s table, she began to cry.   

         “She told me the last time she’d seen a House Blessing was when she turned 15. Her father in England had taken the House Blessing off of their wall and put it into the lid of her steamer truck, and that was the day she was married and sent to Canada. She had never seen her family since,” Silzer says. “They settled in Ontario … something happened to their seed grain, so she took the House Blessing that her father had given her as a gift – the last thing she got from her dad – and she thrashed out the seeds and she planted them in the dirt floor of their cabin.

         “There was just enough light coming in through the window and it was planted beside the cook stove so it didn’t freeze. It grew over the winter, and in the spring they had more seeds and they planted them outside. She said they did that back and forth over winter and summer with the seed stalk that came out of her House Blessing until they had enough to plant whole fields and store the grain in granaries.”

         Silzer says after hearing this “moving story,” she wanted to learn more about this art form that could get someone so emotional. She found the history of wheat weaving is as vast as a farmer’s field, but finding particular documentation is as hard as picking out a unique piece of wheat among the lot. According to the National Association of Wheat Weavers website, the craft began emerging around the 1500s in Great Britain. Silzer has narrowed it down to the Incan Tribe of Mexico through her research. Other sources suggest Wales, Scotland or Spain. Straw has been used over the centuries for making items such as straw hats, reticules, baskets, storage containers and different types of decorative items.              
         The first step in wheat weaving is locating the grain. Silzer would look for pieces that weren’t wet and had not been treated with chemicals or fertilizers. Drought years worked perfectly for her. In Mossbank, you can see farmland in almost every direction. This was Silzer’s store and the farmers were the shopkeepers, so to speak. While Silzer usually took “less than a deer eats for lunch,” she notes it was important for her to develop a strong relationship with these shopkeepers. If anything, farmers got a kick out of the fact that Silzer was taking wheat from their field and producing art. One Sunburst she produced, using materials from her neighbour, was bought by the Liberal party to be given as a gift to Prime Minister John Turner. Silzer was invited to the $100-a-plate dinner, where the gift was presented to Turner, and was able to meet the prime minister. When the neighbour whose grain she used – a Liberal supporter – got wind of this, he went to Ottawa the next summer and met John Turner. Silzer was fascinated by that whole experience.

          “I think I express the beauty of the prairies through my work. Wheat weaving almost had a life of its own. A lot of my adult life I’ve been alone, and the straw has been what’s fulfilled me. As corny as that sounds, that’s what it is.”

– Joy Silzer

         On the flipside, Silzer has encountered just one farmer unwilling to give away wheat for free. While sitting with him at a coffee shop, Silzer said no one had ever asked her before, but she decided to pay him since it was a crop she wanted. She took out a pen and paper, calculating how many bushels the farmer would get per acre, how much money it would bring in and how much grain she wanted. While the farmer sat back all happy, Silzer finished her calculations and handed the man 98 cents. She later sold the piece back to his brother for $250. Silzer chuckles while reflecting on the memory. Though the farmers were mostly helpful, Silzer has had to drive as far as northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba when the other crops were too wet or suffered hail damage.

         Once securing the wheat, Silzer would check for moisture content. Moisture causes mold. After drying out the wheat in a place with lots of air, she would clean off the bottom portion. Finally, the wheat would be soaked in cold water. This would make it soft and allow it to be bent or twisted without breaking. From here, she could begin crafting pieces. The easiest piece for her to create was the wheat heart, which looks like a heart with pieces of wheat sticking out of the bottom. Long ago, Silzer recollects, men gave such hearts as gifts to women they were courting. Silzer also created sunbursts, which were difficult because she had to sort through a lot of straw to find beautiful heads that would work with each other. Silzer also created wheat dolls and scenes to accompany them. There are dolls displayed in her house doing everything from sleeping to, ironically enough, tending the harvest. In creating the pieces, other materials were often required to accompany them like baskets, banjos or pianos. Silzer’s parents created some objects for her and she bought the others. These dolls are Silzer’s favourite pieces because she feels they almost become like characters. Even though she never put faces on the characters, because legend says it gives them too much power, it doesn’t mean they haven’t come to life. One of Silzer’s customers once told her that one of the two fishermen he had was smiling and the other was frowning. Silzer remembers saying, “Really? I guess one was catching a fish.”

         When Silzer first began selling her work, she notes it was popular because it was a new craft on the Prairies. Others soon picked up on the new art form, but Silzer says none really approached it as dedicatedly as she did. But Silzer says the fact she began selling her pieces was an “accident." She only wanted to make one piece. A friend of hers was going to a farmers' market and offered Silzer some space at their table. Silzer didn’t feel the pieces would sell, but they were bought “as [I] was unwrapping them.” The success at this market led Silzer to be invited to more events. The big break for her came when she earned membership into the Saskatchewan Craft Council. By becoming a member of the SCC, Silzer could get her work put into any gallery in North America. Her work was quickly swept up across the Prairies, then Canada, and then the world. The pieces were often presented as gifts to dignitaries. At one time, Silzer even owned a craft store in Mossbank. She has won awards and attended large craft shows in Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg and Toronto. She was invited to attend the Calgary Stampede with Tourism Saskatchewan twice to display her wheat weaving collection in its pavilion.

         Silzer’s pieces have sold for over $100, but it’s never been about the money for her. She’s always worked at least one job while being actively involved in wheat weaving. For her, everything that happened because of her wheat weaving was just an added bonus to discovering the passion in the first place. As Silzer constantly stated during the conversation, “Wheat weaving almost had a life of its own.” She means that wheat weaving fulfilled her for so much of her life, and picking up the craft created so many opportunities for her to travel and interact with people she likely never would have had.

         In the Shurniak Art Gallery, a lone piece of Silzer’s work is hanging on the wall. It has been kept there by gallery owner Bill Shurniak, an accomplished, worldwide art collector who promotes his and other collections in the gallery. After putting Silzer’s work in storage for her back in 2006, he asked if he could look through it and maybe display some. Silzer agreed, though doubted her work was good enough to be displayed. When she next walked into the gallery, every piece of hers that Bill had was on display. Mergen says Silzer was the first artist exhibited outside the collection.

         “It was the greatest sense of accomplishment that I will ever be able to have,” Silzer says. “It’s like writing a book that hits every bestseller list and you get every single award you can get in one shot. The pride you’re going to get when that happens to you is what I felt when I walked in that door.”

         Moments like these have reignited Silzer’s passion for wheat weaving. She’ll occasionally feel the need to “get [my] hands wet for a while and make the rest of the world go away,” but she doesn’t plan on doing shows again. After all, wheat weaving was never about the money for her. If it was about the money, Silzer says she would have churned out more pieces once her work was displayed in Shurniak’s gallery, because with this exposure to the art world the public was interested in buying more of her work. But for Silzer, wheat weaving was, and simply remains, an “obsession.” For her, it is enough to see her work displayed in public settings and never see them turn up in garage sales, showing the legacy she created is well-preserved.

A passionate dance between two wheat dolls.
Photo by Jonathan Hamelin

         As the conversation ends, Silzer walks around the room and shows off some of her different pieces. While picking up a new piece, she often begins telling a story associated with it. It is clear in this moment that the personal connection Silzer feels to her finished products is more important than anything else. This strong sense of attachment has given Silzer’s wheat weaving pieces a timeless quality. This is why, while no new work of Silzer may ever be sold again, the collection of her work around the world will always be as vast as a field of golden grain waving at harvest time.