Banff March 4

While in the paper/dying studio, Ingrid gave us a demo on making a deconstructed screen for printing on fabric with thickened dye.

The screen needs to be left to dry before being used to push dye through onto cloth.

I soaked fabric in soda ash and hung it to dry in preparation for printing on. This is the view to the back of the studio where the bedrock has been left exposed. This studio is in the basement of the Glyde building which sits on the side of a mountain. You have to know where you are going to find this studio because it is isolated from the others. It is a great place to work.

Wendy made felt using fleece she had dyed and hand carded. The equipment behind her is used in paper making.

Banff Centre Dye Studio

This is the Banff Art Centre dye studio.
It has everything one could want when working with fabric and dyes.
This morning I put some fabric to soak in soda ash to get it ready to dye.

Banff March 1

March 1st is the 1st day of Articulation's residency in the Leighton Colony at The Banff Centre. We checked in, had our photo ID Artist cards made up and picked up the key to the studio. The weather cooperated as we carried load after load of our supplies through the trees to our studio.

Ingrid

Husbands were a great help unloading the cars.

Then we took the remainder of our car loads to Lloyd Hall where we each have a hotel type room.

Leighton Artists Colony

Here is a view from our studio looking out towards the neighbouring one which is designed for an artist working with sound.

Here we are last March, all bundled up in our winter gear, heading to our studio for a mornings work.

Click on the title of this post to find out more information about this wonderful programme the Banff Centre offers artists. We will be doing an Independent Residency in The Gerin-Lajoie Studio which is a space specially designed for visual artists. The light coming into the studio is perfect.

At the same time we have many services and facilities available to us at the Banff Centre, including a large arts-focused library/archives, exhibition space and printing/media departments. All of our personal needs are taken care of with private, serviced, hotel-like rooms, meals in a spectacular eagle-nest type restaurant, full fitness centre and ozone drenched mountain air everywhere.

Imagine having all of your personal needs & physical requirements being taken care, being surrounded by mountains & trees, & being continually supported by colleagues who speak the same language - for a whole month!

With these conditions, I predict some amazing work is going to be produced by Articulation.

Banff Centre , Leighton Studios

Exciting news! Articulation, the fibre arts group I belong to, has been accepted into the Artist in Residence program in the Leighton Studios for the whole month of March next year, 2009.
Last March we spent 2 weeks in our studio in the trees carrying out research for our 'Women Rock' study. We are all now back in our studios across Canada developing our ideas, sampling & gathering materials. Come March we will return to our goup studio in the mountains to make the body of work. We already have bookings to exhibit our 'Women Rock' work which will complete the last phase of this large group project.

Tanvi Kant, Textile Jeweller

Tanvi Kant, a textile jeweller, makes neck art out of old saris having started with one of her mother's. Her parents were born in India but Tanvi has lived all her life in England. We met up with her in Ahmedabad where she was about to begin an 8-week artist residency to develop her designs, meet local crafts people and make connections. It is a UK Art Council programme that plans to develop exchanges with Indian artists & crafts people going to the UK.

We sat on the verandah of the Darbargadh Poshina heritage hotel we were staying in while Tanvi talked about her work and showed us some samples.

Banff Centre, Artist-In-Residence, Articulation

The conservationist, interpretive guide, author, Benn Gadd, spoke to us one evening ...

...and took us on a walk up the Tunnel Mountain road the next morning.

He told us the Blackfoot tale about why mice try to hide in Douglas-fir cones.

Banff Centre Artist Residency

While in residence in the Leighton Artist Colony at the Banff Centre with the fibre art group Articulation, I made an installation in the trees near our studio.

I was exploring how we manage a natural environment while I was staying in a National Park/ UNESCO World Heritage Site.

This study is part of my Opus BA(Hons) degree work.

Banff Centre

Dr Jennifer Salahub worked with us for a day during our artist residency at the Banff Centre. She focused on how to do research and how to work with an inspiration to produce a personal response to it.

During a tour of the Whyte Museum, she gave us an assignment make a personal response to this image of Mary Shaffer, an early European explorer of the Banff National Park.

My response was to make some close-up charcoal drawings of parts of the image.

The Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta, Artist in Residence

I am taking a break from posting blogs about my textile experiences during a recent trip to India because I am heading up to the Banff Centre in the Canadian Rockies with my exhibiting group Articulation.
We have been granted a 2-week stay as Artists-in-Residence where we will collect information and inspiration and start developing our ideas on the theme 'Women Rock'. We have all sorts of interesting people coming up to work with us: Dr Jennifer Salahub, a craft historian (among many other things), Willi Schmidt, a professional photographer, Margaret Anne Knowles a museum curator, Ben Gadd, an environmentalist, Tara Moran, a glaciologist, Paul Mackay a geologist and more.
We have a huge studio, nestled in the trees all by itself, to work in. We have full access to the Centre's extensive archives on mountain culture which includes all of the films shown during the annual Mountain Film Festival, so lots of movie nights are planned. We will attend the concerts on at the Centre during our stay including the ballet 'Anastasia' and a Tin Alley String Quartet performance. We will visit many of the museums and art galleries in the town of Banff, including the treasure trove of archives in the the Whyte Museum. We will experience what it was like for women last century when they stayed in the Banff Springs Hotel to take in the mountain air and have high tea in the Rundle Lounge which takes in the world famous Bow Valley view.
We will then work in our own studios for the next 11 months where we will develop our bodies of work. We are planning to return to the Centre in 2009 for a month to work on making the work. The 4th phase of our 'Women Rock' plan is to exhibit the work widely in Canada.