Banff March 9

On Friday, March 6th we all attended Concert Night Out, one of a series of Friday concerts in the Rolston Recital Concert Hall . As resident artists we get in free to these concerts (We are treated so well here at The Centre). We were most fortunate to catch a very special concert. The first half we heard Linda Andonovska play solo on flute, then Cheryl Law on viola with Cecilia Lee on piano, then Nick Alvarex on cello with Kieth Kirchoff on piano. All wonderful, so young and so accomplished.
The second half of the concert featured a group from Japan who play contemporary Japanese music on traditional instruments. What an experience to contrast their music with what we had just heard.

I managed to get some after-concert images of the group Pro Musica Nipponia and some of their instruments. This instrument is played like a horizontal harp and appears to be quite a physical feat to play.

A tray of percussion instruments.

Those magnificent soul stirring Japanese drums.
So we had an uplifting night off after 6 days of work.

Banff Art Centre - March 6

Yesterday we spent most of the day in the dye and print studios. After Ingrid's demo on making a deconstructed screen with thickened dyes, I made one and left it overnight to cure. The next day I printed through it onto a length of soda ash soaked cloth. This is the first layer of colour with the 2nd colour, blue, ready to be pushed through.

This morning I rinsed it after it had cured overnight.

...and hung it to dry. I won't be able to see the complexity of the layering and colour mixing until it is dried and ironed. The stringy stuff in front is cheese cloth. I was wanting analogous warm and cool but the warm is too much like salmon so I will be over-dyeing it.

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 4

Here we all are at Banff with more of the group to join us at various times through out the month: (left) Gloria S. Daly, Ingrid Lincoln, Lesley Turner, Donna Clement, Wendy Klotz. We are standing in front of one of Donna's works, All That Glitters Is Not Gold that we put up yesterday in Other Gallery.

This morning Wendy Tokaryk explained to us how to use all of the silkscreen printing machines, which was like a mini-workshop. The image above is the lounge in Glyde Hall that we use when we are working in the dye/paper studio and the print studio

Banff March 3

There was great excitement today. While we were in the Glyde Building having our WHMIS orientation (safety training) so we could use the 2 studios we had booked, we noticed the small gallery, Other Gallery, was empty! We asked Wendy & Mikhail (above), our trainers, who was responsible for the space. They took us to meet Ed Bamiling and within a few minutes we had booked the space from that afternoon until 8th.

Over lunch we discussed the hanging, then we collected up the finished work we had brought with us and took it to the gallery.

We laid our work around the perimeter of the L-shaped gallery.

Ingrid & Gloria eyeball a work to make it level.

Within 3 hours we had filled that space. We are calling the exhibition "No More White Walls".

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.

Teaching Fibre Art to High School Students

For the past few weeks I have been working with a grades 11 & 12 art class as they learn how to dye and paint fabric. They random-dyed and painted backgrounds then thickened the dyes to paint, print, stencil and stamp for the 2nd & 3rd layers.

This student is cutting out letters from a random-dyed background and is going to applique them onto the pink & blue piece above.
This past week we worked on stitching using straight stitch to add texture, develop a focal point, emphasise line or shape and to balance the composition.
They are a great group to work with. I am looking forward to seeing their stitching progress when I visit again in April.

Walls Talk

Walls Talk is finished - 120 hours of stitching!

John Dean is the photographer. He always does a superb job with my work.

There is lots of clear detail, which is important with this work, particularly because it is all about the materials. Click on the image to zoom in on the detail.
John can see light and he understands textiles are not watercolours. He deliberately sets up lights to make shadows. These images have shadows to show the texture which is one of the most distinctive elements of fibre art.

John's colours are true. Compare his images with my snaps in previous Walls Talk posts.

Walls Talk

Working on building up the focal point of the wall.

This is a large fossil form caught in the stone.


I will have to move the stone blocks around, remaking the wall each time to find the most pleasing arrangement.
Block #7 is having a bubble bath.
I used a lot of old yarns, worn clothing torn into strips and threads that have waited a long time for their day. Also, I dragged these blocks to many places to work on them whenever I could. One day, while sitting on a boat stitching, we both got covered by a salty wave. So they all needed a good wash before being blocked.

Hewing Stone

I am hewing the last stone for the Tyndall wall. Each day I have been washing and blocking a block once it looks as though it has enough of the detailed stitching.

But I won't really how much is enough until I can see all of the blocks laid out side by side as a wall.

Walls Talk Progress

One of the Walls Talk blocks told me it was finished so it went into a soapy bath for a good clean.

Then it was blocked, right side down, and left to dry.

I use a system of wires and pins to block stitching and knitting.

Walls Talk

I'm back stitching in earnst on my Walls Talk (I think that is its name). I have made 8 blocks of Tyndall stone to make the wall. I now have to add lots of detailed stitching to build up each block. Tyndall stone captured lots of different fossil forms so I'm working their shapes into the stone.