Small Expressions Show, Tulista Gallery, Sidney

Synesthesia #4 Spring Green

I have just spent the day working in a team to install this year's 'Small Expressions Show' at Tulista Community Arts Centre, Sidney-by-the-Sea, BC. When we left the gallery late this afternoon all of the work  was in place and looked so inviting. It looked like a place to spend a couple of hours absorbing what it means to be creative.

Synesthesia #5 Green

The vibe on the Pacific Northwest coast attracts those who want to express their creativity actively. This is particularly so in the town of Sidney and on the Saanich Penninsula where there are literally hundreds of artists living within a small area working in every media.

Synesthesia # 6 Blue Green

The catch with this exhibition, Small Expressions, is every work has to fit within the limitations of being 12 x 12 x 12 or less. For some artists, this is their norm. For other artists, it is a challenge and often the results are surprising. A different side of their creativity surfaces.

This is my 3rd Small Expressions exhibition. I am continuing to show work from my Synesthesia series. The 3 above images are of the work I have entered this year.

Synesthesia #24 Golden Yellow

I entered the above and 2 below works last year.

Synesthesia is a series expressing how I feel the energy of different colours. They are sensing drawings in fabric and thread. I have made 10 and plan to make 24.

Synesthesia #23 Orange Yellow

Tomorrow we meet at the gallery to put up labels and to do the tweaking and tidy up until everything looks perfect.

The exhibition opens Wednesday March 4th, from 10:00 to 4:00pm. I will do my first shift that morning. Every artist who is able to sits with the show twice over the month. The exhibition closes March 29th. The gallery will be open every day except Mondays.

Synesthesia #22 Yellow-orange

The Small Expressions Show is just one of a great many different exhibitions, activities and programs under the umbrella of the very active Community Arts Council of the Saanich Peninsula (CACSP). CACSP is one of the 90 regional arts councils in British Columbia whose mandate is to nurture an appreciation of all the arts on the Saanich Peninsula.

Synesthesia #22 Yellow-orange

After completing my studies and starting to cleaning up my studio I was keen to get back to making.

I decided to take a break and make a couple more in the Synesthesia series - a collection of  24 small works about how I feel about different colours - what their individual energies feel like.

#22 Yellow-orange was next. I knew the feeling I wanted to evoke so assembled the threads and fabrics.

I made a quick sample...

...and started. But I was fighting fires the whole time. The first mistake was laying down too much 'dark'. Working over it with a lighter thread turned it a greeny colour. The circles persisted in forming straight lines...

Eventually I gave up and started again. I took the time to establish the values and their range then made decisions within those parameters to get the right feeling/energy.

Finished.

I think of a fermenting, bubbling energy when I see this colour.

Synesthesia Series

Synesthesia #1 Yellow

Synesthesia #24  Golden Yellow

Synesthesia #23 Orange-yellow

These are the 3 works I am entering into Vancouver Island Surface Design Association's next exhibition, in the Nanaimo Art Gallery, January 2014.
 It is a juried show so my work may not get in.

Here is the series so far - 7 of 24 completed.

Current Threads 2013 Artist Talks

On Saturday 21st, the Metchosin Art Gallery featured artist talks during the Vancouver Island Surface Design Association's annual Current Threads exhibition.
Curator of the gallery, Hailey Finnegan, made the opening remarks and introductions.

Sarah McLaren spoke about the processes and techniques involved in her monumental thread painting of a path through a forest. We are all familiar with this native, island forest, which makes the details and accuracy of Sarah's work so inspiring.

Kristin Rohr http://kristinrohr.com/combines science and art to produce maps about important social issues. She made the audience aware of how much sampling she does and how important it is in her process before she is ready to produce a major work. 

Linda Wallace http://www.americantapestryalliance.org/AP/ArtistBio/WallaceL.html is a tapestry weaver extraordinaire. She also makes a bridge between science and art to express how she feels about important personal issues. Linda also produces exquisite, small graphite drawings, most of which stay in her small sketchbooks but some have a second life providing the motifs in large woven wall hangings.

Then I spoke about the 'Synesthesia series I am working on.
I couldn't take a photo of my self but I will be posting more about this series later.

Articulation, Bridging Waters Exhibition

Here is my Postcards From Fundy series where I looked at the history of human settlement in the Bay of Fundy through the textiles the people made, wore and used.

When people entered the gallery Wendy Klotz's "Lost at Sea" work greeted them. It was so moving to talk to a man who had worked as a fisherman in Nova Scotia in his youth.
Wendy's work is about the statistic that as a Nova Scotian fisherman you are 19 times more likely to die on the job than any other occupation. She knitted 19 fish.

Miriam Birkenthal's 'Fundy Algae' caused most people to put their faces very close to the work to more clearly see the details in her bead work.

Wendy thread painted a series as a memorial to the now closed Bay of Fundy lighthouses.
Barbara McCaffrey made a series of small 3-dimensional studies of bivalve shells, found as ancient fossils in the Bay of Fundy and still found on beaches today.

Hemoglobin: Chlorophyll - the process

The ground is a collection of domestic linens (pillow cases, bedsheets, table cloths, bed spread) I dyed in reds and greens then strip-pieced. The resulting fabric hung on my design wall for a long time while I tried to work out what to do next.
The image of the finished work appeared one day.
The next step was to get out my collection of machine threads and sort them by value and intensity...

...then make a selection.

After several drawings on paper I was familiar with the vein pattern.
I drew the leaf outline on the back of the stabilised work then free-motion worked the vein pattern from the back.

 I repeated the process for the lung.
Using the smiley-face foam was a big mistake. It became more problematic the further I went. And a fellow stitcher pointed out the archival life of the foam was not likely to be very long. I ended up cutting most of it out. Working around the stitching was a time consuming job.

Synesthesia #1 Yellow

Synesthesia is a condition where one mixes up the senses eg seeing a sound as a shape or tasting a colour.
I don't have synesthesia but I do see each colour as having a certain energy or movement.
Starting with yellow - the chameleon with rays of energy - I sorted fabrics and threads.

Using my camera set on black/white I looked through the lens to check values.

Snippets of fabric and yarns built up the ground.

Thread painting by machine.
I had wanted to mount the work over a deep stretched canvas frame but ran into difficulty trying to fold the thick, stiff ground around the corners. I compromised and mounted the work in a thin black frame. I still think the stretched canvas would have been more dynamic for this series. Oh well.