Sandra M. Sawatzky is a Canadian filmmaker and textile artist. She has made five short films and a feature film. Sawatzky's embroidered art includes The Black Gold Tapestry, which depicts the history of oil on 220 feet of linen, and the Age of Uncertainty, a series of twelve panels depicting modern anxieties. Sawatzky was awarded the Doug & Lois Mitchell Outstanding Calgary Artist Award in November 2022.
Life
Sawatzky was born in
Saskatoon
Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Hig ...
. She moved to Calgary to study illustration at the Alberta College of Art and Design (now
Alberta University of the Arts
The Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts) is a public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a differen ...
). She trained as a filmmaker at the
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology
The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) is a Institute of technology, polytechnic institute in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. SAIT offers more than 110 career programs in technology, trades and business. Established in 1916, it is Calgar ...
. Sawatzky made five short films on dance, and a 2004 feature film ''The Girl Who Married a Ghost'', which adapted a myth belonging to the Nisquali Tribe, telling the story through dance. Sawatzky also taught fashion and the history of textiles at a fashion college during the 1980s.
awake
The Black Gold Tapestry
Sawatzky was inspired to create a tapestry on the subject of oil after a visit to an exhibition of embroidery by pioneer women at the
Glenbow Museum
The Glenbow Museum is an art and history local museum, regional museum in the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The museum focuses on Western Canada, Western Canadian history and culture, including Indigenous perspectives. The Glenbow was establ ...
in Calgary in 2007. The Black Gold Tapestry is a constructed from eight linen panels with silk and wool thread. It is more than 220 ft (60 m) long, and is modeled on the
Bayeux Tapestry
The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidery, embroidered cloth nearly long and tall that depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest, Norman Conquest of England in 1066, led by William the Conqueror, William, Duke of Normandy challenging H ...
, incorporating text and images between upper and lower borders of dinosaurs. It took Sawatzky almost ten years to complete, using the same stitches as the Bayeux Tapestry. Sawatzky describes her work as "film on cloth", saying "it too has a lot of movement and humour". The panels depict the story of oil over 5000 years from the Jurassic and Mesozoic eras, through the
Neanderthals
Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...
and
ancient Mesopotamians
The Civilization of Mesopotamia ranges from the earliest human occupation in the Paleolithic period up to Late antiquity. This history is pieced together from evidence retrieved from archaeological excavations and, after the introduction of writ ...
using bitumen and oil as glue, and Chinese use of gas in salt extraction, through to modern day developments such as efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Panels depict the use of
Greek fire
Greek fire was an incendiary weapon system used by the Byzantine Empire from the seventh to the fourteenth centuries. The recipe for Greek fire was a closely-guarded state secret; historians have variously speculated that it was based on saltp ...
,
William Perkin
Sir William Henry Perkin (12 March 1838 – 14 July 1907) was a British chemist and entrepreneur best known for his serendipitous discovery of the first commercial synthetic organic dye, mauveine, made from aniline. Though he failed in tryin ...
's discovery of mauve dye, and the loss of life during the
Deepwater Horizon
''Deepwater Horizon'' was an ultra-deepwater, Dynamic positioning, dynamically positioned, Semi-submersible platform, semi-submersible offshore drilling Oil platform, rig owned by Transocean and operated by the BP company. On 20 April 2010, ...
oil disaster.
The tapestry was first shown with a seven-month exhibition at the
Glenbow Museum
The Glenbow Museum is an art and history local museum, regional museum in the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The museum focuses on Western Canada, Western Canadian history and culture, including Indigenous perspectives. The Glenbow was establ ...
, in Calgary for the Canadian confederation's 150th anniversary in 2017. In 2018, a panel was exhibited at the Canadian High Commission in London. The tapestry was included as part of the exhibition ''If the Sky Were Orange'', at the
Blanton Museum of Art
The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent co ...
at the University of Texas in 2023. Curator Jeff Goodell described the tapestry as "...a wonderful piece. It uses an ancient and very traditional medium, very reminiscent of the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
, to tell the story of the evolution of oil. It’s really lovely in that it’s a kind of storytelling about the long human history and connection around energy". Writer
reflected on the piece, saying it "creates a genealogy for humanity’s present predicament by placing it within history".
From June to December 2024 the tapestry was part of the exhibition ''Displacement'' at the MassArt Art Museum in Boston. In February to May 2025 it was part of the group exhibition ''Threads of Change'' at th Museum of Design in Atlanta Georgia.
Age of Uncertainty
Age of Uncertainty is a work of twelve embroidered panels by Sawatzky. Sawatzky describes it as depicting "twelve issues that keep us up at night", such as debt, AI, corruption and climate change. The panels are inspired by the illustrations from medieval manuscripts such as
Books of Hours
A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, mo ...
, and depict modern day scenes alongside quotes. Sawatzky received a
Canada Council
The Canada Council for the Arts (), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to ...
grant to complete the work. Age of Uncertainty was shown at the
University of Calgary
{{Infobox university
, name = University of Calgary
, image = University of Calgary coat of arms without motto scroll.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
, former ...