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News / Clark County News

History-themed tapestry returns to Vancouver Barracks

Dozens of stitchers involved in project that started in 1999

By Tom Vogt, Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter
Published: August 22, 2017, 6:05am
4 Photos
A panel in the Fort Vancouver Tapestry honors the Port of Vancouver. The 108-foot-long tapestry will be on display from Monday through Sunday, Aug. 27, in the Artillery Barracks.
A panel in the Fort Vancouver Tapestry honors the Port of Vancouver. The 108-foot-long tapestry will be on display from Monday through Sunday, Aug. 27, in the Artillery Barracks. The Columbian files Photo Gallery

Threads of history that form a 108-foot-long tapestry is back on display in the west portion of Vancouver Barracks.

The Fort Vancouver Tapestry will be shown from noon to 5 p.m. daily through Sunday. The exhibit, which opened Monday, is in the Artillery Barracks, 600 E. Hatheway Road, two blocks south of Officers Row.

The tapestry consists of about 70 panels of embroidered wool, stitched on Belgian linen. About 22 miles of woolen yarn went into the project.

The tapestry is 28 inches high, with individual panels measuring from 4 inches to 36 inches wide.

If You Go

What: Fort Vancouver Tapestry.

Where: Artillery Barracks, 600 East Hatheway Road, Vancouver.

When: Noon to 5 p.m. through Sunday.

“Each panel details a certain place or event or person vital to the history of Clark County and Southwest Washington,” Sherry Mowatt, the project’s artistic director, said in 2015 — the last time the tapestry was on display.

Mowatt is scheduled to be one of the exhibit leaders. The tapestry display is part of an end-of-summer week of historic tours and talks organized by the nonprofit Fort Vancouver National Trust.

“We are still seeking a permanent installation place, but are stymied by the 108-foot length, which is daunting for most spaces,” Richard Burrows, the National Trust’s director of community outreach, said in an email.

The project started with a city grant in 1999, under the leadership of Eleanor van de Water. She died in 2005, the year the tapestry was finished. Almost 60 Northwest stitchers participated, as well as 12 who came from Japan.

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Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter