Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre in Haliburton presents The Lost Boys: An Installation by Michele Karch-Ackerman

Michele Karch-Ackerman creates exhibitions that manifest opportunities for healing and understanding. In her long standing touring exhibition, The Lost Boys, Michele explores the transition from childhood to adulthood during WWI; the tragedy that it came so early, and for far too many not at all. Conscription or a sense of duty led many young people to the battlefields of Europe and to the abrupt end of childhood innocence. Weaving together the story of James Barrie's Peter Pan with the stories of so many lives lost in the First World War, the artist honours and pays tribute to these "Lost Boys".

Drawing from old photographs, using hand-knitted sweaters and other domestic materials, Michele Karch-Ackerman mines the comfort brought by home and hearth to create a poignant exhibition that expresses and honours loss, remembrance and consolation. The themes in this exhibition are timeless and timely, as our world continues to experience war, its associated losses and suffering. "It is my job to soothe” says Karch-Ackerman. “I would like to be Wendy. The Wendy of Peter Pan who so consoled her Lost Boys with stories and love. I will sew nightgowns. I will make dolls. I will knit sweaters. I will provide clean straw and clean sheets. I will make the terrible itching go away. And the fear".

The exhibition runs from October 20th through November 17th. The Opening Reception takes place on Saturday, October 20th from 2-4pm and includes performances by The Haliburton Children’s & Teen Choirs.

An Old-fashioned Knitting Bee & Artist Talk:
The Lost Boys draws us together in community by inviting the public to become part of the exhibit and knit small sweaters at a Knitting Bee. Join us at the Gallery for an artist talk, knitting bee on Friday October 19, from 6 pm – 8 pm. Enjoy tea served on the gallery’s beautiful china while you knit. Knitters will be supplied with a pattern and yarn for a tiny sweater. Needle size will be 4 ½ - 5, if you have some bring them along. All sweaters created will be incorporated into future exhibitions of the Lost Boys across the country.

Drop-in Knitters are welcome on Wednesdays – Fridays 11-5 pm and Saturdays 12-4 pm throughout the run of the exhibition. Sit, contemplate the exhibition…. And knit!

Volunteers are also needed to wind yarn. Join us amidst the clutter and excitement of exhibition set-up to wind yarn for knitters, October 17, 18 & 19, 2007 during Gallery hours 11 am until 5 pm.