Upcoming exhibits

A touring exhibition titled Hats from a Life Lived includes one of my fibre pieces titled Creative Hands.  This exhibit features many wonderful women artists from Winnipeg and is curated by artist Colette Balcaen. The show is scheduled to be in Neepawa and Portage La Prairie for August and September 2014

Hats from a Life Lived

In Neepawa at the Viscount Art Gallery. An opening event is scheduled for August 13, 2014 from 1-4 pm. The exhibit will remain in Neepawa until the end of of August. 
You can see more about the show and the centre here: neepawavcc.ca

The entire exhibit then moves to Portage La Prairie to the Portage and District Arts Centre.  It will remain on display from September 2 - 27, 2014. 
 For more information about the arts centre see:
 www.portageartscentre.ca

This project was fun as the curator Winnipeg artist Colette Balcaen invited artists to participate in a project of altering vintage hats to represent subjects and people who were of influence in our lives.  My hat was influenced by three women in my life who inspire me to make things.  My mother, my grandmother and my mother-in-law.  Each image illustrates their favourite creative pastime.

I chose needle lace as the method of creating the images and then went about the process of learning how to make needle lace as I had never tried it before.  Needle lace is a form of lace making that allows you to create a fairly detailed image using just thread and a needle.

I started by drawing an image on a piece of paper and then couching a thicker piece of crochet thread onto the paper to act as an outline.  Once this is done then smaller thread is used to basically create a decorative grid of thread lines and stitches to fill in the image. I even took some liberties in creating my own stitches from the more traditional. Then the entire thread image is lifted off of the paper by cutting the couching threads and gently clipping them away from the finished project.  Each image was then tacked onto the hat.  I am very pleased with the overall look.

Painterly Challenge

Why not paint with acrylics instead of oils?  Acrylics have several advantages.  They are water soluble and there are lots of mediums available that can help make acrylic paint imitate oils.  Moreover there are mediums that can allow an artist to paint with thick heavy impasto with very low risk of cracking as it dries and enables an artist to paint quickly as acrylics dry very fast.

Oil paint on the other hand can be tricky.  You are required to paint in layers allowing each to dry as you proceed.  The use of underpainting white, thinner, and wingel expedites this process by speeding drying time.  However you are still required to allow for drying time before putting one colour over another or you risk making a muddy mess of your colours.  Just to make it even more challenging as a painting dries oil will rise to the surface making it difficult for the next layer of paints to bind to the surface.  If you use too much oil mixed in with pigment you can lower the tone of the colour or impede the paints ability to bind while not enough oil will do the same.  The ready availability of colours in tubes along with various mediums take much of the guess work out of oil painting but knowing when to stop painting is important to a successful painting

Interrogate Space, Oil on canvas, 2009: Private Collection

Boxed In Exhibition

Here is an invitation to "Boxed In" an exhibition of contemporary craft work by artists including myself along with artists from across Canada.  67 artists are included in this exhibition and the show will be on display in two exhibiton sites, the Rooms and the Gallery of the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador from January 25 to April 14.

Here is a link to the art gallery where my artwork will be on display.
http://www.therooms.ca/artgallery/

Switching Gears

For the last year I have switched gears in my art practice and instead of painting I have been concentrating on sculpture.  For many years I have worked on a series of sculpture titled "Generation" completing one sculpture every year or so.  Needless to say it may take a while to complete enough for a solo exhibition.

The image shown above is a sneak preview of my most recently completed piece titled Sleaze Entangled.   This piece will be on display at the Rooms in St Johns, Newfoundland as part of a group show called "Boxed In."   Sleaze Entangled is a component part of the series 'Generation.'  This series explores the complexity of gender and sexual identity as social constructs.  To make this piece I used a jelly mold, fabric, glass beads and vinyl tubing.  I enjoy the challenge of combining a variety of material in order to make the image in my imagination a physical reality.  Learning a new skill is an additional challenge I appreciate.

Talking about new challenges and learning new skills, the above image is from a second piece recently completed called Creative Hands.  In order to complete this sculpture I taught myself how to needle lace.  I really enjoyed the intricate and repetitive process of lace making.  With needle lace it is extremely challenging to make the stitches even and to create different textures.  I love the detail that can be achieved just using some thread and a needle. 

Creative Hands was made specifically for a group exhibition as yet to be determined.  From this project what I now look forward to is using needle lace on some future piece that will be a part of the "Generation" series.  Allowing myself to be distracted by other projects enables me to plot and scheme about future works as yet to be realized.  In the time it takes to knit a sock or sew a shirt, I have considered half a dozen options on how to execute the next sculpture, I have added or taken away from it, and considered a multitude of material options before starting the next piece.  In the end what will finally influence me the most will be the materials themselves because only they know what form they will unltimately take.