N.S. rug hooker injects new life into craft and an old church

'The Britney Spears of rug hooking' Hannah Epstein takes an unconventional approach to traditional rug hooking. CTV's Sarah Plowman reports.

An old Anglican church in Martins River, N.S., has a new purpose. The basement is now neo-folklore artist Hannah Epstein’s apartment. Its altar is now her studio and the naive is now an art gallery curated by Andrew Cairns.

Epstein knows rug hooking may often be associated with older people, but the young artist injects contemporary imagery into her work. And it sells all over the world.

She has pieces inspired by the Simpsons, Britney Spears or Nova Scotia’s own Maud Lewis.

Ask the artist, and she’ll tell you she was influential in bringing rug hooking into the contemporary art world.

“The contemporary art world is a really funny place where kind of anything goes, but you didn’t see a lot of textile until a few years ago,” she said.

“I went on a long journey from someone completely on the outside of the art word to picking up a totally arcane skill and going on a Trojan horse mission that took 12 years to become relevant.”

For her interview with CTV News, Epstein insisted on wearing a costume she made. The head-to-toe rug was a performance piece.

“I was thinking about creating these characters called serfs, sort of like contemporary modern versions of smurfs,” she said.

During the pandemic, rug hooking exploded as people spent more time at home and posted videos or photos of their work online.

On Instagram, Epstein has 20,000 followers. One of them is her assistant, Libbie Farrell, who connected with Epstein during the pandemic and has been hooked on rug hooking ever since.

“She's definitely like the Britney Spears of the rug hooking, so it's a real privilege and honour to be able to work alongside Hannah,” Farrell said.

Epstein grew up in Halifax but spent years living in Toronto and Los Angeles before moving back to Nova Scotia in 2020. She bought the church for practical reasons.

“The church was the cheapest piece of real estate I could find. Nobody wanted to take it on. There was no bathroom,” she said. “The kitchen was kind of industrial.”

She’s now converted it into a new gathering space.

“Just a parallel to the rug hooking adaptation. So like taking an old craft and trying to make it new. This is taking an old space and trying to make it new and relevant to some new people,” she said.

The church studio is currently showing the work of Cat Bluemke and Lisa Theriault and will be holding its next opening for the work of Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart on Sept. 3.