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.

   

   

Photo Shoot in the Green Shed by Tony Bounsall

Tony Bounsall - Tony Bounsall Photo Design came to the Green Shed for a photo shoot.

Tony has been photographing my work for years because he really knows how to capture textiles.

Here he is setting up to photograph Barbara McCaffrey's large work.

I thought this work would be a challenge because it is solid buttons that turn shiny under lights but Tony was up to it and produced a lovely image.

I pushed back all of the furniture to make a large space in front of the design wall.

I invited 3 other artists to also have their work photographed in the same session.

We were all applying for the juried exhibition 'Eco-Threads' and wanted our work to look the best.

Laura Feeleus, Barbara McCaffrey, Sarah Mclaren

I moved the furniture around in the studio again to be able to block some loooong knitting. I had to build up the lower cutting table to extend the flat surface to block on.

To block knitting I use wires to hold the edges out straight while the fabric is drying. Wool has memory and will hold this shape once it is dry.

I use a t-pins to hold the wires at the corners and at a few places along the edges.

I had made 2 bias knit scarves in kid mohair and hand dyed merino for birthday gifts. The birthdays were happening soon so I needed to get these finished and in the post.

Then it was back to continue working on the Synesthesia series.

The flexible studio space was put to the test this week and proved to work well.

'Know Your Place - Ideas In Art Form' Exhibition at Tulista Gallery, Sidney, Vancouver Island

Sherley Gordon Edey has invited 7 other artists working in different media to exhibit their work with her photography while exploring the many layers of meaning in the statement

'Know Your Place'

Sherley presents her work in a wide variety of formats, including video and keeps the viewer looking for the story. Often several different stories will emerge from one collection.

The artists who have joined her: Colleen Golumbia, Norma Lofthouse, Dale MacEwan, Terry Murray, Pamela Truscott-White, Lesley Turner, Jean Weller, tell their stories about knowing their place through their own media: clay, wood, baste fibres, fabric.

It all makes for a most stimulating exploration of the theme.

Section/Township/Range

Starting nearly 150 years ago twelve percent of the earth’s land mass was divided up by a straight line grid system, a system now deeply ingrained in western Canadian rural culture. A hierarchy of roads and fence lines mark the boundaries of land ownership. Land parcels have been passed from one generation to the next and continue to be bought and sold. The boundaries of one’s place are still defined by those original Dominion Land Survey lines now deeply etched into the landscape.

This is my contribution to the exhibition. 

Throughout history, many people have been told where their place is, whether a surveyed plot of land, a designated reservation, a placed they fled to or a legally enforced place of incarceration. 

Some have a long family history of living in one place with the passing of each generation reinforcing their feeling of belonging.

Others travel and respond intuitively to their surroundings sometimes arriving and knowing this is where they belong.

As a geographer, I explored one's connection with the land. The other artists explored very different 'Know Your Place' associations. 

I do hope you can make it to the exhibition and see the works for yourself.

CACSP Community Arts Centre at Tulista Park, 9565 Fifth Street, Sidney

April 11 - 17, 2016

Monday - Friday 10 - 4, Saturday and Sunday 12 - 4  

Studio Construction: Design-Inspiration-Photography Walls

With just a few more things to do in the studio I started the serious cleaning up of construction dust.

Mike is preparing the base for the design wall - fibre board and cork...

...with a layer of blackout curtain material added on top. The rubberised coating does an excellent job holding the pins.

I steamed out the wrinkles before it was attached to the wall.

The sliding door is put on a barn door railing.

I

In this position, it will be used as an inspiration board. It is next to the sewing station where I can pin up samples to see what they look like when placed vertically and from a distance.

When the door is in this position it becomes my photography wall where I can document works in progress. I can step way back between the furniture to check on the work from different distances.

Here is the design wall before the blackout cloth is attached. The wooden frame is screwed in place so it can be taken off easily when I need to replace the worn out blackout cloth. I have had my current design wall in use for 6 years and it is not showing any signs of failure. But I am designing for 25 to 30 years of use before anything inside or outside the studio needs to be replaced. Fittings, fixtures and materials have been placed so they can be easily replaced without having to a major reno of anything else.

Articulation Attends World of Threads Festival

The 1st festival exhibition Articulation attended was an independent solo show in Ristorante Julia.

Toronto artist, Mafalda Silva, showed Tangled Memories, a body of work about having life changing experiences while staying essentially the same person.

She shows this change by observing the natural world.

Mafalda stitched small amounts of colour into black and white photographs.

Viki Jenkins BA(Hons) Embroidered Textiles

 

 

 

MISSA Days 2 & 3

Day 2 at MISSA in Tony Bounsall's Altered Imagery class was spent doing terrible things to photographs, beginning with soaking them in water to loosen up the emulsion. Then we scratched, sanded, scribbled, brushed, waxed, sprayed and bleached them.
The above image is from day 3 when we were shown how to do gum bichromate printing. This is the wash tank.

We dry our efforts on the clothes line.

A couple of my compositions. Lots of layering gives interesting effects.

MISSA Day 3

Day 3 at MISSA I started another course. Photographer/designer/artist, Tony Bounsall, offered an irresistible course, 'Altered Imagery'.
Within the 1st hour he had us up on the photocopier rolling our faces over the glass after he had explained it was actually a slit camera. You can imagine the laughter coming form the copier room as 7 strangers produced distorted images of their faces. It was a perfect ice breaker for the new class, which showed Tony's skill and experience as a teacher.
We then went on to college these photocopies onto a board and worked them up with other media.
Here is my 'Grotesque Portrait'.

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Time for a quiet cup of tea in my favourite spot.

The next exercise was to transfer photocopied images onto paper. This is as far as i got with this one but it has potential.

I liked this technique so stayed behind after everyone else had left (I always work better when on my own) to continue working on this transferred collage.
I was playing around trying a few of the many options Tony had suggested, when i remembered the bottle of waterproof ink on our supply list. i had been impressed with Tony's demo so decided to try it. i opened my new bottle...squirt... it splashed out and flooded the center of the piece. Did i stop and wipe it up? No! I continued to spread the ink over the whole thing, making it all black. By the time i remembered i was to wipe it back it was drying fast. So then i got out a blade and started scrapping it back until I was gouging the original paper.
Hmmm... time to leave the room.

I decided to name this effort 'Unsupervised Play'.

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.

'Regression'

Here are some close up images of the other half of the dip-tych. This part is called Regression. It just needs the finishing touches and it will be finished.

I am now in the process of hunting down a photographer to get professional quality images of the work I have done this past year. I am looking for an art photographer and I would prefer to use someone who has experience in photographing textiles. Textiles need to be skilfully captured to keep them looking textural and alive. They are quite different from other traditional art mediums such as watercolour on paper and oils on canvas when it comes to capturing images of them.

When I lived in Calgary John Dean photographed my work and did a wonderful job. He is a graduate of the Alberta College of Art + Design and photographs a lot of the instructors' work. He has a lot of experience with a full range of media. Now I am looking for a 'John Dean' in Victoria.