Being an Artist Outside the Studio and the Skills Required

Lesley, Lingrid, Laura, Louise

Opening Reception Dualities exhibition, Cre8ery Gallery website, Winnipeg

May 9 to 21, 2019

What began in the studio results in an exhibition with many steps and stages in between. 

Ingrid Lincoln standing by her work at the Opening Reception, May 9, 2019.

Nearly half, if not more of an artist's time is spent doing things other than making art.

Louise Lamb (r) talks about her work to a guest at the opening.

An artist has to like doing all of those other art related things to be able to get the work out of the studio and in front of the public.

 Using cutting, measuring and duct tape skills to make a shipping box.

One can buy shipping boxes from a number of different sources. It is time-consuming to track down the right sized box. If it is only just big enough there is not enough room for padding to protect the work. If the box is much bigger than the work the cost of shipping is more than it needs to be or it is too big and the company can't ship it.

I prefer to make my own boxes from recycled cardboard. Yes, I have been known to dumpster dive when I see large flattened boxes sticking out of a bin. I have a large collection of boxes, cardboard and recycled packing materials in my studio's packaging room.

The box needs to be made so it can be opened when it arrives at its destination then filled again and resealed ready for the return trip. Every piece of packing material needs to be named and I often add my email to the larger padding pieces and the box. Labels need to be printed for both journeys. 

The work in this box was in an exhibition until the day before I flew to Winnipeg for Dualities. I took the work with me on the plane. At the airport there was a hiccup - it was too big to go through the x-ray machine.

The box had to cut open, the work physically examined then returned to the box and resealed with special tape with words saying the box had passed inspection. With all of that, I forgot to ask for fragile stickers for the box. As it disappeared down the conveyor belt I wished it safe travels and hoped it would be unmodified when I saw it next.

Several weeks earlier I had shipped two large boxes of art to Ingrid's place in Winnipeg. While the smaller box was within the dimensions Canda Post will ship the larger one was not. I needed a courier. Previously I have successfully shipped large, heavy boxes at the lowest prices using Greyhound buses but that company no longer exists on the island. The new company is still setting up its parcel delivery services and is not yet fully automated. I found that and their new name, Box on a Bus, slightly unreassuring. However, all was well when all three boxes were safely in Ingrid's house waiting to be hauled to the gallery.

The next step was to get the boxes from the vehicle up to the second floor of the gallery.

This was a fun part because we got to use an ancient freight elevator. The Cre8ery Gallery is in the old Exchange District of Winnipeg where there are many buildings over 130 years old.

Bob (left), the gallery art installer and Bob (right) Ingrid's husband who has enviable woodworking skills, are manually operating the elevator working it to get its floor to stop in line with the building floor.

When the artwork, tools, and equipment are all in the gallery the installation can begin. This a stage requiring another whole set of different skills the artist needs to have mastered: agility and balance shimmying up and down a ladder, steady use of the hammer, a good eye for leveling or use of a level against the art, strength to repeatedly move plinths until they are in the right place, stamina to keep working steadily for however long it takes to get things perfect. Depending on the gallery the artist will hang their own work or there will be a curator. Cre8ery's owner, Jordan Millar is an experienced and well-qualified curator and installer and she has Bob to hang the work. Her decisions and Bob's experience made for a quick hang this time with 7 people working for 3 hours.

The promotion of an exhibition is another arena where the artist needs to have knowledge and develop skills. Image management, promotion materials design, and keeping up with effective social media developments are all time-consuming activities necessary for a successful exhibition.

If the artist is the exhibition's project coordinator, as Ingrid was for Dualities, there are a lot of administrative tasks including liaising with the artist group and the gallery staff.

I do enjoy all the activities required of an artist but I have to admit some days I wish they didn't keep me out of my studio for so many hours.

Dualities Exhibition at Cre8ery Gallery Winnipeg May 9 - 21, 2019

'Dualities' is the brainchild of Ingrid Lincoln. She invited three other artists to join her in expressing this concept: Laura Feeleus, Louise Lamb and me.

The four of us are exploring two very different geographical locations - the vast expanse of the Canadian prairies with its continental climate of extremes and native plant cover of prairie grasses contrasted with the Pacific Northwest coastal region with its moderated climate and native plant cover of vast rainforests. Yes, these are both big places.

Ingrid and Louise live in the middle of the vast Canadian prairie. Laura and I live on a forest covered island next to the vast Pacific Ocean. Louise grew up on this west coast but now lives in the prairie city of Winnipeg while Laura grew up in Winnipeg but now lives in Victoria on Vancouver Island. Ingrid's childhood began in the interior continent of Europe while mine began on another temperate forest-covered island in the southern hemisphere. These experiences of contrasts in place and geographic shifts are reflected in our distinctively different art practices. 

There is also a duality in the different media and techniques within our individual practices. For Laura, it is textiles and paper she paints and waxes. Ingrid's stitched textiles are often based on her drawings. Louise uses printing inks and paints while printmaking and referencing her photographs. I work with worn domestic textiles and organic processes adding hand and machine stitches. The resulting works explore the duality of media and place.

Laura - Laura's website here

Ingrid - Ingrid's website here

Louise Lamb

Lesley - Lesley's Gallery here

Another aspect of this duality concept involves how each of us approaches our work and the methods we have chosen to resolve an idea visually.

   As we explore the duality of our own geographical childhood memories and current homes we also visually express concepts either as internal or external dialogues. Imagine an X-axis geographical line intersecting with a Y-axis dialogue line forming four quadrants:

• coastal forest + internal self-talk - Laura
• coastal forest + external dialogue - Lesley
• continental grasslands + internal soliloquy - Ingrid
• continental grasslands + external conversations - Louise

 Ingrid’s work, while identified with the prairie city of Winnipeg, expresses her inner voice as a soliloquy. The conversation she holds with herself about her adopted city includes references to its people, the climate and the surrounding environment.
  Laura grew up in Winnipeg but now strongly identifies with the waters of Coastal B.C. Her art expresses a visual monologue between the two locations.
  Louise Lamb’s external conversations with her chosen materials and painting processes are influenced by her childhood home on the West Coast as well as her present home on the prairies.
 My textile work is firmly grounded in British Columbia’s maritime rainforests where I undertake external dialogues with the trees to develop a more intimate relationship with the place I currently call home. I reference childhood memories of growing up in New Zealand's temperate rainforest, an earlier home I knew well.

Each one of us intuitively works within a defined quadrant providing context for our work, which is highlighted by our different choices of media and processes.
We will be arriving at the Cre8ery Gallery, website here  to install our work together. We have never exhibited together before and not all of us has yet seen each other's work. I am really looking forward to searching for the commonality and duality in our individual bodies of work once it is up on Cre8ery's walls.  It is going to be so interesting to see how the multi-layered concept of duality will be expressed in this exhibition.
We do hope you can come to see the exhibition while it is on May 9th to May 21, 2019.
The Opening Reception will be on May 9 from 7 to 10pm. We four will be there and would love to meet you and talk to you about our work.

   

   

Articulation's 2016 Study Session in Gimli

First stop out of Winnipeg on the way to Gimli was at Arnason's Icelandic Horse Farm.

One of the few places in the world outside Iceland where these distinctive horses can be found.

For more about these unique horses visit Articulation's blog here

Rock Art - Boat - Gimli

The reason why Articulation went to Gimli was to study Icelandic culture.

Gimli (New Iceland) is the largest Icelandic settlement outside Iceland. Back in 1875 and 1876 more than 1,000 Icelandic immigrants settled on the western shore of Lake Winnipeg on land the Canadian government gave them to govern independently. 

We found Icelandic textiles old (as above in the Gimli museum) and new in the local shops.

A Whitefish boat up on the hard. 

Evidence of the early dependence on fishing in Lake Winnipeg was found in many places up and down the western shore.

Hecla historic home

The Icelandic immigrants brought with them their architecture and woodworking skills.

Pickeral and wild rice

We sampled Canadian/Icelandic food whenever we came across it.

For more about Articulation's time in and around Gimli, check their  blog  here.

Life Happenings

A new lot of work is boxed up and on its way out to the world.
I spent most of a day wrapping the work, making boxes to fit, printing address labels and sealing them up before taking them down to the Greyhound depot.
They are on their way to Winnipeg for the first Articulated Materials: Bridging Waters showing in Canada. The exhibition will be in Cre8ery Gallery during the Embroideres Association of Canada annual conference in Winnipeg.
The exhibition will include work by Material Girls from the UK.

After the marathon to finish and package up the work was over it was time to go outside to see what had been happening in my abscence.
I discovered we have an area of camas lily - a valuable find because it is not as common as it used to be when the bulbs were a carbohydrate food source for the First Nations peoples.

Then I noticed a new flower in amongst the grass.

But it turned out fallen flowers from the Arbutus tree growing overhead had been stabbed and caught by the spears of grass.
I describe the grass with battle terms because I am experimenting with different ways of getting rid of the allelopathic grass so natives can grow in their place.

Victoria College of Art

Here is more of Articulation's works presently hanging in the Victoria College of Art.
My 'Provisioning' in the Winnipeg body of work.

Gloria's 5 encuastic handstitched views of Winnipeg architecture.
On the right, ReBecca's 'Winter Willow'.

Miriam's exquisite bags, 'Tyndall Bag' and 'The Memory Bag', from the Winnipeg body of work.

I donated a work from my Arctic series for a draw. The president of the college, Professor Peter Such, will be pulling the winning business card from the basket tomorrow.
Tomorrow afternoon Donna and I will be taking the work down. Donna will be driving the Calgary works back over the mountains and we will post the other works home.

CQA Conference

Wendy Klotz talks about her work.

I talk about my work.

Gloria Daly's 'Stalwart' and Donna Clement's response to the arbutus tree, both works from the Rain forest body of work.

Ingrid Lincoln' 'Graffiti' and 'Cityscape' from the Winnipeg collection and my 'Meadow' from the Rocky Mountain collection

Provisioning's Narrative

Yesterday i put 77lbs of art (plus box) on a Greyhound bus, bound for Calgary and the Calgary Quilt Association Biennial Conference in the Telus Convention Centre. Articulation has been invited as special guests to put on a huge display of their work, most of it never seen before in Calgary and a whole body of work inspired by Vancouver Island's rain forest ecosystem that hasn't been seen by the public yet. In fact, Articulation members haven't even seen this work together yet. It is always exciting to bring new works together for the first time, knowing they have all been inspired by the same location.
I can't talk about this new work yet but i can tell you the narrative of one of my works that has been shown in Winnipeg.

'Provisioning' was inspired by Articulation's study week in Winnipeg. During our research in the streets and buildings of Winnipeg, I noticed how important textiles had been in the development of Winnipeg as the 'gateway to the west' and how  the city went on to become one of the wealthiest cities in North America from 1880 to 1920. Yet, I couldn't find out very much about the people who made these textiles. It seems their contribution has not been recorded.
'Provisioning' is my tribute to those unsung, unknown textile works who made such a valuable contribution to the success and wealth of Winnipeg.

Textiles were needed to carry the dried food staples and animal feed for Europeans to be able to survive a year on their allocated block of land before they could claim it as theirs. Textiles were needed to hold the valuable seeds of the first crop to be planted on the land. Blankets and furs kept the immigrants alive during long sub-zero winters. A multitude of domestic linens were used to run households where we now use plastics and disposables. Clothing was woven and knit in the home, if one had the skills or couldn't afford to purchase. Businesses set up in Winnipeg to provide families with all of these vital textiles.
Women did 'fancy work' to beautify their homes, such as table cloths and doilies to protect the few pieces of furniture they had.
There is a lot more to this story in 'Provisioning'.
If you would like to learn more or you would like to share with me your family's 'Provisioning' story, which i would love to hear, come down to the Telus Convention Centre, April 27 to May 1st. I will be there most days. I'll post here the actual times and when i am scheduled to give an official 'artist talk'.

Tony Bounsall Textile Art Photographer

That's what I call him any way. Tony actually has many skills and talents but I call him a textile photographer because he did such an excellent job making digital images of my work. I had to hunt all over Victoria carrying my work with me visiting a number of different photographer's studios before I found someone who understood what I needed.
I am pleased with the soft shadows that highlight the textures and the clarity of the details.
Thanks Tony.

This work is one I will be packaging up tomorrow in preparation for sending to Calgary for the Canadian Quilt Association Biennial Conference in the Telus Convention Centre. It will be in the area where Articulation, as special guests, will have 8 booths full of work.
If you are in Calgary any time between Tuesday 27th April and Saturday 1st May, I do hope you can come downtown and visit us.
There will be 7 Articulation members in town over the week and present in the booth area at all times when the show is open.
Any one of us can give you a guided tour of the work, just ask. If you don't, we will ask you if you would like to know anything about the works.

This work of mine, that Tony did such a good job of photographing, is called 'Provisioning'. If you come down to the Convention Centre I'll tell you all about it. Its got its own story.