Victoria College of Art Exhibition

The post office delivered more art work yesterday. This morning I have been gathering up all of the things we will need to hang the show.
Wendy and Derek will be in the middle of the Rockies at the moment as they drive over to the island today.
I am about to go out to the airport to pick up Ingrid and Bob who are flying to the island.

I have also spent the morning planning the exhibition layout.
This is the Drawing Room at the college where I plan to hang Articulation's most recent body of work, Rainforest. This probably where the Opening Reception/Open House will be held and the location of all the demos and workshop help over the 2 weekends the exhibition is up.
During the Open House on Friday evening, 6:30 p.m. to whenever, most of the faculty will be present also so people interested in taking a course at the college can meet up with the instructors. Of course there will be nibbles and drinks too so it should be a great evening.

This is the Photography/Print Room (de-blacked out) where I plan to install the Winnipeg body of work. It is down stairs in the lower level.

This is the Art History/Art Therapy Room where the Links body of work will go.
That's the plan anyway. It is always good to go into a project with a plan and then keep flexible. Ultimately we will put the work where it looks its best. And it will all look so good in this lovely 100 year old building that was built as a place of learning.

Victoria College of Art + Articulation

I thought I would show you some 'before' shots of the spaces in the Victoria College of Art that will be transformed by a retropsective of Articulation's 1st 5 bodies of work.

Work has started to arrive in Victoria by mail. Wendy will be driving out to Victoria this week bringing work from the 3 Calgary members. Ingrid will be flying from Winnipeg bringing work with her.

Altogether there will be 60 works.

We begin hanging the work on Thursday. We will be working hard to settle each work in its place by the opening on Friday 27th at 6:30 pm.

Vancouver Island Surface Design Assoc

More pics of Vancouver Island Surface Design Associations inaugural event, an exhibition in the Ladysmith Gallery, Ladysmith. This group formed less than a year ago as a response to the difficulty in getting across the Salish Sea to attend meetings regularly in Vancouver. Many members live on the Gulf Islands and find it easier to ferry across to Vancouver Island to attend a meeting.
More members: Kirstin Rohr, Gloria S Daly, Judi MacLeod.

Alison Kobylnyk, Susan Purney-Mark, Linda Wallace

Paulette Cornish

Did I mention the food at the opening? Alison did a stupendous job planning and co-ordinating us all to produce this.

Current Threads 2010 Opening

Just got back from the opening of Vancouver Island Surface Design Association, Current Threads 2010 exhibition opening in the Ladysmith Gallery. We had a great turn out (picture taken before the crowds arrived).

Artists, from left, Judy Seeley, Jessie Taylor Dodd, Gloria S. Daly

Paulette Cornish, Anna Marie Madsen, Gayle McIvor

The show is up until the end of August. The gallery is open everyday from 12 til 4, with one of the artists in attendance with a gallery volunteer.

'Narrative Textiles' by Articulation at Victoria College of Art

The Victoria College Of Art exhibition by Articulation

 NARRATIVE ARTICULATIONS is a cross-Canada show by nine Canadian contemporary textile artists, all City and Guilds of London Institute trained. Each year members of Articulation go to a special place in Canada to do a study together, then they return to their respective studios across Canada to produce a body of work based on the study. The next year they exhibit the work. The group has had two residencies at the Banff Center, Banff, Alberta. They are currently working on a body of work to be exhibited in the Whyte Museum, Banff in September 2011.

Curated by Lesley Turner, Victoria College of Art - Fine Art Textiles instructor, the free exhibition will fill the walls at the college with over 50 works. The artists will be in attendance and there will be free demonstrations, workshops and artist-led tours throughout the course of the show, which will run from August 27th to September 10th. Opening reception will be held Friday, Aug 27th at 6:30 p.m. at the Victoria College of Art, at 1625 Bank Street. For more information, email info@vca.ca or call us at 250-598-5422.

NARRATIVE ARTICULATIONS

Friday, August 27, 2010 at 6:30pm

1625 Bank Street, Victoria BC

Victoria Symphony Splash

Each year the Victoria Symphony sets its self up on a barge out in the inner harbour and plays music until late in the night.

Thousands claim a spot on the lawn in front of parliament buildings...

...along the inner harbour board walk....

...and from front row seats in their canoes, kayaks, row boats and small motor boats - to listen to spectacular music blast across the water for hours. The grand final is accompanied by fireworks.
It is just another great summer event happening in Victoria, on Vancouver Island.

Dissertation & Ladysmith Exhibition

This is what my dissertation looked like last week - all of my notes, scribbles and jotting down of ideas organised according to the dissertation outline, in my trusty Pendaflex. Since last week i have been writing a chapter a day, planning to get the first draft complete by next week.

This dissertation is to be fully illustrated so i have been putting a lot of thought into the whole look of these illustrations and how i will make them.
I have been looking closely at the flowers on the afternoon tea cloths i am writing about. I went out to the garden to get images of the flowers that are on the tea cloths.

After picking some samples i pressed a few of the flatter ones and covered the rest in silica gel to dry them out.

I have spent the past 2 days in Ladysmith where I have been involved in hanging the first exhibition of work by the newly formed Vancouver Island sub-chapter of the Vancouver Surface Design Association. I was so busy with getting the work up and looking good, i forgot to take photographs - both days!
I'll do better at the opening on the 7th August - 5 to 8 pm if any of you can come.

MISSA

Some more playing around with techniques in Tony Bounsall's altered imagery class.
What a refreshing and stimulating way and place to spend a week.
I want to go back next year.

These lovely images were taken while I wandered the Moss Street artist hang-out event here in Victoria. The man is a master artist from Japan on a cultural exchange called JAM. He was at MISSA all week, along with other teachers from Japan.
This little girl and her older sister were watching him make pots on the wheel. He invited first the older sister to try but she was too shy. When he asked this girl, all in sign language, she nodded yes.
Not a word was exchanged between them and barely a glance, and together they made a beautiful pot.

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'.

MISSA End of Day 2

Another close up of the layers built up on the white silk with wax, dyes and screen printing, in Shannon Wardroper's class.

Cutting up the length of silk to put it back together again.

My first go at using the silk to make a wall hanging

While building up the layers on the silk, I was thinking of diving down deep in the sea. It was probably inspired by the floating classroom we were in.