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.

   

   

WAR: A Personal Response, Body of Work, 'Grief Redacted'

Grief Redacted

Vintage linen tablecloth, cotton thread; hand embroidered.

For my installation in Articulation's 'WAR: A Personal Response' exhibition I have recreated my grandmother's living room to reflect her mental state during WWI, WWII and the following years. I believe she suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) most of her adult life. The room I have created tells her story.

Grief Redacted is a tablecloth laid on a table set for tea. The colour of the embroidery chronicles her decline into PTSD.

Stitching on a boat.

The cloth chronicles my grandmother Florence's life so I decided to make it a part of my life. I took it with me where ever I went and worked on it whenever I could.

Stitching on the Coho ferry en route to the USA.

Stitching on a riverboat in the Malaysian Highlands.

PTSD symptoms unrecognized and untreated can be passed on to future generations. Florence's great-granddaughter Elizabeth added her stitches to the cloth. In total nine of Florence's descendants worked on the cloth to illustrate the wide-ranging and long-term effects of PTSD within a family.

The brightly coloured flowers reflect Florence's happy relationship with her high school sweetheart until he headed off to war. The flowers turn black from worry as she waited. After his joyful return, their marriage and the births of their 4 sons, the colour returned to flowers. Following the tragedy of her "shell-shocked" husband committing suicide, three sons joining the Air Force and the oldest son dying in a plane crash, she stitched only in black. Guided by her religion, bound by nationalistic cries of 'for God and country' and deep down being tormented by humanist feelings of guilt and shame, Florence suffered from PTSD as the battle raged within her home.

Links to works by other Articulation artists in the 'WAR: A Personal Response' exhibition:

Donna Clement here

Wendy Klotz here

Amanda Onchulenko here

Pathways Exhibition by Vancouver Island Surface Design Association - VISDA

During the Vancouver Island Surface Design Association (VISDA) 'Pathways' exhibition in the Portals Gallery, Duncan, a member sat in the gallery each day.

When it was my turn to sit with the exhibition I had a lovely day. 

When I wasn't talking to visitors I had time to look at every work, then I had knitting to get on with.

'Memories of Place: A Chromatic Narrative,' Sarah McLaren, left.

'Life is s Spiral Pathway, Not a Straight Line,' Donna-Fay Digance, right.

'River' Laura Feeleus, left.

'Deer Trails,' Jean Cockburn, right.

Green Shed Activity: New Singer Sewing Machine and 40 Meters Khadi Fabric

I got a new sewing machine for my birthday. 

It is a Heavy Duty Singer that can sew thick and fast.

My new Bernina 780 is not up to sewing thick layers of fabric, something I have had to accept after giving away my 40-year-old Bernina 830 Record which could handle everything I gave it.

The Bernina 830 Record is known as a workhorse. I did 4 years of City and Guilds courses on this simple, non-computerised machine. 

Ron has been getting a hard time from his buddies about giving me a machine so I can once again do canvas repairs on his boat, something I couldn't do after I got the Bernina 780. This Singer can sew 3 thicknesses of canvas but I haven't tested it to its needle breaking limits yet.

It comes with a needle threader, a thread cutter, 18 built-in stitches, 2 different buttonholes, can be threaded for a twin needle and the feed dogs can be dropped for free motion work.

All this for $149!

I won't tell you how much this baby cost. It was a graduation present after I completed a BA (Hons) Embroidered Textiles.

The Bernina 780 is an amazing machine but it does have some problems the company has not fixed and they have stopped making this model. It is so highly computerised it self-corrects the tension even when I want a loopy stitch. I can't work cable stitch using thick threads in the bobbin because it self-corrects. 

My new birthday Singer can make loopy stitches and it sews fast.

40 meters of lightweight fabric just washed.

I bought this Indian, handwoven cotton cloth from a favourite shop, Knotty by Nature Fibres,  here in Victoria. 

It is a jacquard woven, light-weight, narrow cloth that I think would qualify as Indian khadi cloth.

I ironed the 40 metres while still damp and while binge-watching Vikings. 

At this stage, I have no idea what I will do with 40 meters of fine white cloth. It is all washed, ironed, folded and put away in the Green Shed to wait out the 'Percolation' stage.

Colour: A Personal Response Exhibition at ArtSea Gallery in Tulista Park, Sidney

Opening Reception of Colour: A Personal Response - Lesley and Sarah.

Thank you, Louise, for thinking of and taking a photograph of the 2 of us on the night of the opening.

The gallery waiting for the first viewers.

Each of the works is monochromatic, made using only one colour.

We hung the work with Sarah's making a colour wheel going clockwise around the room.

And my work making an intersecting colour wheel going anticlockwise around the room.

The result was each work was hung in a group with its complement.

At the small books table, we asked people to pick a colour and write their thoughts or feelings about that colour. It was a popular centre on the opening night and throughout the week.

I love the little drawings the children made.

Sarah and I spent our time while sitting the exhibition talking to people about how the work came about and what our concept was. There were lots of conversations in front of the works over the week also.

People stopped to read our artist statements and bios.

Sarah at the front desk keeping track of visitors, sales and answering questions.

Sarah had cards for each of her works for sale and did a brisk business.

Each work had its colour book. Sarah's were a result of her research on each artist she studied and made a work on. My books were marks showing the energy of each colour in a different medium - paint.

The fabric colour cards were displayed on turntables grouped by temperature.

The cool colours of the colour wheel.

The warm colours.

We sold a good number of individual fabric colour cards but the packs with all of the colours were the most popular.

The tally of visitors to the show tell it was a successful exhibition. For Sarah and I, we know it was successful because of the interest shown in our work by so many people over the week. They wanted to hear all about everything to do with how the idea started to how we worked, how we made each work and how we hung the work. There were people who came back again bringing other friends with them. Our viewers wrote lots of encouraging words in the guest book and have sent us emails of thanks since.

Sarah and I want to thank everyone who came to the exhibition and also all of those who have supported us while we worked to produce this body of work.

The exhibition is going to be travelling for a while. I'll keep you posted on where it will be stopping.