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.

   

   

All Beings Confluence - Martha Cole's Community Project in Victoria

Martha Cole, a Saskatchewan fibre artist, has brought her monumental community art project to Victoria for the first time. You can see it in the Cadboro Bay United Church until May.

"All Beings Confluence is a community-based, interactive project that was directly inspired by Carolyn McDade, a composer, social activist and environmentalist whose music has sustained and nourished many over the decades."

The opening reception at Cadboro Bay United Church was a moving experience. One could walk around and through the many panels while listening to music, singing and poetry readings.

Martha explained how the project came about and how she came to bring it to Victoria.

Next stop is Parksville, Vancouver Island.

When Martha arrives in a community she runs a workshop where people work on long sheer panels each depicting one being found on our planet. These panels are then hung together with previously made panels creating paths and a changing kaleidoscope of views through transparent layers.

Here is the website to learn more.

'Small Expressions' Opens in Tulista Gallery, Sidney BC

The Community Arts Council of Saanich Peninsula is hosting its annual 'Small Expressions' exhibition in the Community Arts Centre at Tulista Park, Sidney BC, March 4 - 30, Tuesdays to Sundays, 10:00 to 4:00 pm.

A team of us spent 9 hours the first-day accepting work and hanging the show.

One of the challenges with hanging the show is all of the works are small. 

Artists were challenged to work within a 12" x 12" x 12" framework. This is not always easy when one is used to expressing ideas in a much larger format.

It is interesting to see how many of the artists take the opportunity to explore a new technique or medium. They take more risks and they make discoveries. I wonder if for some this Small Expressions exhibition works as a catalyst or a jumping off point to head in a new direction.

When planning the hanging we had to forget about going for contrast in size and focus more on themes, colour contrasts and compatibility and how different works influenced each other. 

With all the works being small we hung them close together and in groupings ensuring each work sit comfortably with the others.

That is why it took 9 hours the first day and more hours the next day to straighten, adjust, fine tune, tweak, and add labels. I wasn't able to help the second day because I was out at Sooke hanging the VISDA 'Current Threads: Garden Tapestry' exhibition I posted about here 

One of this exhibition's charms is how it makes the viewer  physically get up close to the works. Each work enters the viewer's personal space creating a feeling of intimacy. Having to look at one work at a time slows the viewer down and encourages contemplation. Long distant scanning of the walls is unsatisfying. There is an absence of the usual back-and-forward dance in front of the wall. Instead, the viewer moves along the wall with their nose nearly touching the works.

VISDA Current Threads 2015: Garden Tapestry

I want to make another post about the Vancouver Island Surface Design Association's current exhibition because every work is such an excellent example of  the many techniques fibre artist's have to work with.

The above detail is Linda Elias's "Beet Harvest" where she used actual beets and leaves on a Gelli-plate to print on the cotton fabric and she added a layer of stamping. She backed the cotton with a hand woven wool cloth and machine stitched into the layers before adding hand stitching and beading.

Linda's expression of the excitement in bringing in a plentiful harvest moved someone because they bought the work even before the official opening. Congratulations Linda.

Lori Mudrie's "Thistles and Lace" (detail) has to be seen to be fully appreciated. This work is much fresher and softer looking than what you see in this poor image. What you are looking at are all fibres and fine thread. She needle felted a variety of different rovings blending the colours in a painterly way then she incorporated hand and machine stitching to catch the characteristic forms of thistles and Queen Anne's Lace.

Laura Feeleus's "Conservatory" (detail) shows a number of the different ways stitches can be used to attach items to a ground. On the right are dried rose petals trapped under hand-dyed silk. On the left is a vintage lace doily held in place with a layer of sheer silk and french knots. Elsewhere on the work are tree seeds and stones held in place by hand stitches.

Christine Fawcett's "Dawn's Delight" (detail) shows raised surfaces using a number of different techniques: furrowing, Kantha, and spot applique. Silk taffeta was dyed with avocado skins and eucalyptus bark using natural dyeing techniques.

Jo Ann Allan's "Medieval Garden" (detail) has many historical textile references going back to the European Middle Ages. It is also a showcase of exquisitely worked hand stitches, techniques that have been practiced for centuries: Hardanger, blackwork, casalguidi raised embroidery.  In other areas of the work, there are machine embroidered slips, a contemporary take on an Elizabethan technique for applying heavily embroidered pieces to a ground. The old and new have also been combined with a traditional linen ground fabric and an area of hand-made silk fusion fabric.

Jo Ann is the co-ordinator of this exhibition and has done an excellent job in organising the details and communicating them and the deadlines to all of the artists. The theme is gardens and Jo Ann began by sending members a 3-page list of ideas related to this theme which I am sure was a great source of inspiration for many of the works in this exhibition.

The exhibition is on for another week, ending November 10th.

I do hope you can go and see this exhibition if you haven't already done so.

Studio: Loading Up

The studio is ready to be 'loaded up.'

The first step is to assemble the shelving, but I need to also have the stuff to go on each shelf ready to show where to place each shelf, working from the bottom up. This procedure makes the most of the shelving space.

We took the furniture from the old studio that I wanted to continue using out to the new studio.

Good friends JP and Caroline McCartin came to stay for the week and we put them to work. They willingly made all of the trips between the old and the new to move all of the containers and furniture.

Ron and JP leveled off table tops...

...and assembled shelving while I loaded them up.

Caroline got into the cleaning...

... getting into spots I couldn't reach.

Caroline pulling herself out of the fabric-roll storage.

Caroline cleaning my bead storage unit.

Caroline and I spent the afternoon making a print table board - a two person job for one this size. First we joined two pieces of closed cell insulation board with duct tape then trimmed the board to 8' x 4', the size of the table. We taped on a sheet of cardboard from the steel shelving packaging to give the insulation some strength. This was wrapped in a king-sized wool blanket trimmed and sewn to make a snug fit. The final layer was a wrap of heavy plastic. I am very excited about being able to print to this size.

Big thanks to Caroline and JP for working so hard at transforming an empty space into something looking more like a studio.

Studio Construction: Furniture and Fittings

This is the project station, with its wheels attached. The open space is for long things, like bolts of fabric and long rulers.

Mick is asking us where we would like to have the drawer handles placed. It is hard to make an on the spot decision about something one hasn't considered before.

Ron is assembling the faucet. He spent a lot of time in front of the computer trying to find the faucet I had described to him after working with different types in different studios. He was successful with his search and I am pleased.

Now to put it together.

Looking good.

After everyone had left I had a play moving the furniture into its correct place. The nearest unit, on the left, is the print station. The smaller one, on the right, is the dye station.

View from the other end of the room. This unit is the project station.

It is getting so close now I barely sleep at night.

Studio Construction: Fixtures and Fittings

The hot water tank is installed in the crawlspace below the tub. This energy efficient placement means little heat is lost between the hot water tank and where I need the hot water.

South Shore Cabinetry made and installed the cabinets and some of the furniture.

Here are my drawing and design desk areas...

...backed by a bookcase.

The print table gets its wheels.

These drawers...

...go into both sides of the dye station.

A shelf is made to support the double tub.

The tub is braced while the sealer cures.

The room is finally coming together and beginning to look like a studio. I am enjoying visualising how I will work at each of the stations.

'Edge of the Forest' Opens

Edge of the Forest Exhibition Opens

The first exhibition of the Canadian Surface Design Association's 'Edge of the Forest' opens in the 

 Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts. Richmond Hill

 It is up for all of March. There is an opening reception on March 11th.

Here is the rest of the schedule, to date: 

April 20-May 4th, 2015 –  Art Square Gallery Toronto

June 4-July 9, 2015 – Exhibition at Parrot Gallery Belleville, ON

August 15  – October 18, 2015 prior to & during Fibre Arts 2015 Conference, Woody Point, NL

The aim of this juried fibre exhibition is to present a survey of work currently being done by Canadian members of the Surface Design Association

Here is my entry.

'Forest Reliquary' 2014 

Materials: Vintage cotton table cloth, earth pigments, cotton thread, leaf skeletons, deer bones, maple tree samaras, fern spores

Techniques: Earth dyeing, spore printing, hand stitching (furrowing, whipped double running stitch, attachment).

Currently, I am using domestic linens and earth pigments as I explore the biological processes in the Pacific North West rainforest. 

Read more here.

I will be teaching a 2-day, weekend workshop on using earth pigments at the Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts 2015 MISSA June 27 - 28 this summer. Do come and join us if you are interested in learning about working with eco-friendly earth pigments and need a little MISSA Magic in your life MISSA

Sun Printing With Setacolor

The conditions were right: no wind, sunny, fresh leaves falling fast.

It was the right time to sun-print.

I lay an old door on the grass and covered it with plastic.

I had a collection of leaves I had picked up on my morning walk.

Three Setacolor transparent greens were mixed and thinned with water.

I laid a wet bed sheet down on the plastic and painted it.

Next the leaves were placed on the wet paint....

...and left for the sun to do its work.

Name on the bed sheet.

I like to think Maude is happy with what has been done to her bed sheet.