Tag Archives: Artist in residence

A change in season, a change in space

Well. It’s been a while! Despite my best intentions to get back into a regular routine here, I’ve been consumed with getting things sorted post-exhibition-opening: clearing out the AIR studio for the next person, securing a second (small, but soon to be mighty) workspace so I can actually move between supplies, worktable, and storage (thinking ahead to when all the work comes down too!), getting new projects sorted and underway. OH, and catching up on all the other ‘stuff’ that has needed doing for the last while, and that I’d semi-successfully swept under the large carpet called “ignore.”

And these shifts come at an altogether appropriate point: the change to the long, dark half of the year here. That time if hunkering down, daylight saving, soup and stew, fires and sweaters and hot tea. I really appreciate that the residency officially had its end on October 31; a day of ancestors, of looking back in time and thought, that pause for review and acknowledgement before moving forward again.

SO – on with it, back to it.

First on the long list was to bid a fond farewell to my big residency studio, pack everything back into my original (somehow very much smaller than it was!) studio, and prep for the next Harcourt House Artist-in-Residence to arrive.

… back to big, white walls, and being able to see the floor!

The AIR previous to me, Dave Janzen, had done a fantastic job of prepping the space for my arrival, and I only thought it fitting to extend that gesture – pay it forward, as the saying now has it – and do the same on my leave-taking.

… ready for more …

So, out came the spackle, the sanding blocks, the primer and paint. Walls, once covered with charcoal dust, pushpin and nail holes, were now in reasonably sensible shape. Got the place swept and emptied too!

It was a little sad to say goodbye to this studio – I had spent many, many hours there making work. A bit odd too, to see the space so empty again (people keep telling me I made a lot of work this past year … I believe them now!!)

Some little gestures toward continuity in other ways were here too. Some of the previous Artists in Residence had left behind little tokens to signify their presence and work in this space. Tim Rechner (AIR 2005-2006) wrote above the doorway “keep building it up” … and no one has removed or covered that call to action and intent. I found it a good reminder on a number of levels, to be sure. Dave Janzen (AIR 2010-2011) left behind an image printed on a piece of corrugated cardboard: a quirky vintage image of a small boy in short pants, grinning in a most disturbing way from under an equally disturbing haircut (you can see the bit of card on the wall, beside the shelf in the picture above). I left a little something too: an experimental gel transfer on plexiglas, showing a series of nests in a bank of trees. These small things do far more than assert the ego-driven “I was here” – to me, to me they are marks of presence that address ideas of history and continuity in the art-making in that studio … they are an ongoing welcome, and an invitation to more.

Of course, doors often close and open simultaneously.

… just down the hall, new adventures to come …

I was extremely fortunate that another studio came available in the building, just down the hall from my studio! I’d put my name in for a second space quite some time ago, in anticipation of needing the room after the residency finished, and especially after the exhibition work comes down later this month! I’m still very much in the early stages of getting things sorted, out of tubs and boxes, and into the “right” studio – this space will be for messy work, and my original studio will be a ‘clean’ space for storing work, drawing, research and writing, and printmaking. More pictures to follow of the new space, when it’s been sorted and painted!

This second space is also a marker of a different sort – it heralds the beginning of a brand new project! I will be sharing this space (and my original studio) with Marian Switzer to develop a photo-based body of work called YORK. I’ve discussed it a bit previously here - but there’s much more to come in the next while, as the work develops and the pieces fit together. Look for a static page and a separate blog on the project, coming very soon! I am really excited about the way this work is coming together already, and I’m really looking forward to digging deeply into it over the next while.

… and with that, I should really get on with the ‘to do’ list!

Phew! NEST has opened, and I think I’m starting to decompress a bit ….

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I feel a bit like I’m lost in a haze just now …

NEST opened last night at Harcourt House. I also presented an artist talk on the work and the residency – which I understand from others was reasonably coherent – I don’t really know, it was a bit of a blur to be honest!

Icarus Car also opened last night in the Front Room gallery at Harcourt – a really great collection of video work – I recommend it highly! Check out Evann Siebens‘ website or Keith Doyle‘s website for more of their work.

It was a long three days installing Monday through Wednesday of this week, but the work went steadily, and generally without any horrendous hitches. I had some fantastic help from friends, so that made the work and any issues we did have much easier in so many ways. All in all, I’m really happy with the show … so exciting to see the work in a proper gallery setting for the first time! One of those truly happy moments – when I was able to look at all the work, installed, and see it look very much like I anticipated it would. Who knew – it worked out the way I’d hoped after all!

For those of you farther afield who might be interested – some photos I took today, of the work in situ:

I had a sample of the chapbook on display as well, and the response has been great so far! So happy to see that project take flight, and have positive feedback about the book on all counts: design, the prints, and of course Catherine’s beautiful poems.
I also had a number of inquiries about sales - both for the book and for work in the exhibition – so I thought I would post a note about all of that here too, so anyone that was interested could follow up on the contact page here … to wit:
The chapbooks are $40.00 CAD each, for the duration of the exhibition (October 18 – November 24 2012). After that, the price goes up (assuming any of the books are left!)

All of the work in the gallery is also for sale.

If you are interested in purchasing a book or some work, contact me DIRECTLY, and we can make arrangements. As an artist-run space, Harcourt House doesn’t deal with any of the commercial aspects of exhibiting art … so, that part of things happens one-on-one with me.

I’m looking forward to taking a day or two off – time to sleep, regroup a bit … catch up on all the glamorous things in life (like laundry!), and look towards the next set of things to be done (some neat new project coming down the pipe … more on that later!). First things first though: my next art-related task is emptying and cleaning the A.I.R. studio! I have NO idea how I’m going to fit everything into my little space (having more than double the studio space for a year has really got me spoiled – and working LARGER than ever before!) But, those are really questions for another day.

Just now, it’s time to sleep.

Just a few days … !!

Four Weeks, as of Today …

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In four (very short!) weeks, NEST will open at Harcourt House Gallery in Edmonton, AB.

The Opening Reception is October 18, 2012, 6:00 - 10:00 pm, at 10215 – 112 Street, 3rd Floor.

I will be giving an artist talk at 7:15 pm.

In an odd way, it doesn’t seem real yet … that the year has gone by so fast, that the work for this exhibition is, for all intents and purposes, complete.

What a journey it has been. And it’s far from over; this body of work is ‘phase I’ of NEST overall … I will continue to make work, and also turn my attention to writing in a more consistent and focused way. I will also be showing some of the work in the Residency exhibition (along with new work) in Toronto In February 2013 (more on that to follow).

But for now … it is good to stop for at least part of a day, and consider what has come to pass in the past very-nearly-12-months.

As to what will happen next … more to follow, when I catch my breath just a little. Lots happening!

Books! Printed, Collated and Bound!

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I’ve always been a sucker for paper, pens, letterpress … all the delightful things that keep reading and writing an immediate and tactile experience. I’m a bit of a Luddite or a throwback I guess, but there is something utterly irreplaceable and so very delicious about hand writing a letter with a fountain pen … holding and reading a real book, and smelling the fresh ink-and-paper smell when it’s opened for the first time.

So really, it should be no surprise at all for me to discover that I adore bookbinding.

I have had the honour and pleasure to collaborate with poet Catherine Owen for several years now (her blog is here – and well worth a read!); this latest incarnation of our work together is a chapbook, revolving around – you guessed it – nests. Catherine has written some beautiful nest poems over the last year; her wondrous words and my images (based on the nest forms she used in the poems) come together here.

This little volume with be available for purchase October 18th, at the Opening Reception of NEST, my Residency exhibition at Harcourt House. I was going to wait a bit to show the world - but I’m really pleased and excited by the results, so it’s Preview Time!

Some images of the chapbook, NEST {types} :

Seven Limited Edition, hand carved and pulled block prints of Nests will be in the chapbook …

… how I spent my Sunday … collating pages before binding the book. Good thing we’ve got a large dining table!

… and the finished product! 10″ x 8.5″, text stock is 80% wheat straw; block prints are on rice paper; 65 lb FSC certified cover stock. Bound with unbleached linen cord. 50 numbered copies.

I’m happy with the way the entire project turned out – and looking forward to doing more in this vein over the coming years.

This particular project has been both a fitting close and an opening out: I am a little less than a month away from the exhibition of NEST and the end of that year-long process. That reality also marks an entry into the next phase in the project (nope it’s not over yet!!), in which I will develop more visual work, but also turn my attention to writing, and to working with Catherine further to see what evolves in this body of work.

Looking forward, always, to the adventure …

Much Afoot …

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Well, it’s been very - very – busy in the studio lately!

Seems as though I’m actually making some headway though, so that’s a good thing … the last push before the exhibition in October continues, with some interesting related-but-slightly-tangential-to-the-moment projects along the way, for good measure (just in case I felt like I needed more work to keep me busy … sheesh).

The sculptural pieces I want to include in the Residency exhibition in October are nearing completion (phew~!!), and I am really quite happy with the results as they stand just now. Some tweaking and fine tuning to still do, but overall, things have worked out as I wanted and expected them to (no small sigh of relief there).

I have also been writing, and working on writing-related things … since October 3, 2011, I have been collaborating with Catherine Owen on a sustained project related directly to the work I’ve been doing in the studio: we have been co-writing a poem … and we just finished it! The piece is 50o lines long … yup, TWO zeroes there … 250 lines each, alternating, for almost a year. The idea for this project came from Catherine’s discovery that it can take up to 500 trips for a bird to find the material it needs to complete a nest. So, from this “500 lines about Childhood – or - It Can Take One Bird Up to 500 Trips to Complete a Nest” was born. It is by turns funny, quirky, eccentric, painful … all the things childhood is and can be – and has been – for both of us. An incredibly powerful experience to write this with Cath, and I am very grateful to her for suggesting it – and for being such a great support and inspiration throughout. The work in its entirety will be incorporated into a sculpture I am presenting next month. Images to follow … just not yet!

I’ve also been working with Catherine on another poetry project that will see the light of day at the October exhibition of NEST – we are producing a chapbook of Catherine’s poems and my block prints! NEST {types} is the title of this little book, and it includes a selection of nest poems written by Catherine Owen, and a limited edition series of hand carved block prints of different nest types created by yours truly. I am really excited about this chapbook – both the writing and the prints – and am having a delightful time putting it all together.

Some pictures - not the best – but to give you a hint of what’s in store when it all comes together:

The cover of the Chapbook, featuring a block print of a magpie nest, created and photographed for the book

The set of seven block prints that will accompany the nest poems. The nests you see represented here are the following Birds: Eagle, Blackbird, Grosbeak, Marsh Wren, European Bee Eater, and Weaver.

Carving the blocks for this project was a wondrous experience for me – a lovely combination of the things I love best: drawing, sculpture, and printing (which I haven’t done in any concerted way since printshop class in high school – which I loved!). And to be honest, I just love working with my hands – the making of doing this was so incredibly satisfying. And at the end of the day, being able to see this set of 350 prints (7 prints, 50 copies of the chapbook being created), finished and ready to be bound into the chapbook, was one of the most satisfying moments I think I’ve ever had.

More to come … soon!

The Last Push … and what it might mean

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I’ve been working really steadily in the studio the last few weeks, and that doesn’t seem to be letting up any time soon. I did take a lovely break this past weekend to attend a good chunk of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival – which was delightful – but even then, I put in several hours in the studio on Thursday and on Friday in advance of going to the evening sessions.

… the view from the hill of the main stage at the Edmonton Folkfest …

It’s the ‘last push’ in preparations before the October Residency exhibition, in which NEST will see the light of day as an organized body of work (well, at least, it’s my sincere hope it will be an organized and coherent body of work … let’s put it that way!) The exhibition opens on October 18th – and while on one hand, that seems like a relatively long time in the future, in actuality, it’s the blink of an eye. It takes so much time to make work … time and energy and thought, and some of that effort is emotional as well, to be honest, and so really can’t be rushed. Nor would I want to rush any of this work – not the process, nor the result in each piece.

Of course, throughout the process of creating this work – well before I actually began making anything, truth to tell – I had much to reflect on and think about: the ideas that spurred the project were (to me at least) fascinating, and remain so to this day. But that’s just the starting point: the intellectual and conceptual fuel as it were. What the project has become is also a deeply personal journey; a combination of archaeology, discovery, and letting go.

I am quite struck with just how autobiographical the work has become – quite directly so. It is not in any way lost on me that my continued interest in the intersections and conflicts between the competing narratives of memory, history, and the social construction of identity has a direct and enduring relationship to my own personal lived experience. Yes, I know, an obvious thing – but the depth of that understanding and grasping the enduring nature of that questioning is something very new. Identity and its relationship to security – to one’s sense of home and the stories and memories that come out of that first nest – can be slippery things indeed.

Whether we admit it to ourselves and the rest of the world or not, the archetypal nest is a home for the heart. We all seek that emotional space that we understand to be stable – permanent, even – in the face of ‘life’, which is really simply shorthand for continual process and all the change that it embodies. It is an old truism that ‘home’ is not a place per se – that as individuals, we contain it or hold it somehow within mind and memory. So it is at once visceral and primal – and utterly abstract. We have need of the refuge it supplies on every level of survival imaginable … . Because the enormity of that need can seem overwhelming at times, we externalize it: invest objects with emotional and symbolic import, hang on to the grand narratives of childhood and family like fetishes that provide access to that other, first world in which we lived in that nest, felt secure enough to venture forth and (at least) peek over the edge to the world below the tree.

But what if those objects are for the most part gone? What if those childhood narratives have been called into question – unverifiable, or suspect in some way? What if that sense of security (of any sort: emotional, physical …) within the primal nest held no guarantee; what if it was a contingent thing, qualified or tenuous in some way(s)? How do these other possibilities disrupt the understanding of the nest as refuge and haven, home for the heart and body … and what effect does this have on the way we construct our-self-story through the filters of memory, and in relation to the assumptions inherent in the social discourse of race and class and gender?

Much to learn and ponder here … and this writing is a start.

I leave you tonight with and image of some recent work, and a quote from an amazing singer:

A test print from some lino cuts I’ve been doing lately …

“…you must understand that I have never really known how to describe the work as anything other than an inspired reaction to the love of and a desire to communicate an arrow from the heart.” – Lisa Gerrard

… sometimes the work is an arrow to the heart as well.

Nesting, or Obsessing … Take Your Pick!

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Things have been pretty quite around these parts lately, for which I apologize. It’s been a ‘go hard or go home’ kind of time the last few weeks … much going on, much to be done. This seems to be the way of it.

So… this is what I’ve been up to:

There was a really nice article in the Edmonton Journal about my work and the Residency this past Friday. Given the number of hits on my web site that day, I’d say a few people out there saw it. Thanks for stopping in – hope you come back in the future!

I’ve also been making work like a mad fool; today was day 7 in a row in the studio … 5 or 6 more to go before a day off (and I am in NO way complaining!). This is simply the point in the Residency when I get to PANIC!! There’s a part of me that is perfectly rational, and knows the work is coming along just fine, and I will have more than enough ready for the exhibition in October, and I just have to trust myself and the process of making the work and exploring all these ideas (as I have for the last 8 months) … and there’s that voice in the back of my head screaming at me … “What on earth do you think you’re doing?? What does it all mean anyway?? DO you even know anymore?? What made you think that this was good work, anyway?!” The usual … it’s a fact of life for many of us I think. The closer we come to a big deadline, the tougher we are on what we have done and still need to do. Still, it’s been a bit unnerving and stressful … but a great stimulus for working hard!

To wit:

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I have also been drawing on a much larger scale:

I kept the ceiling and floodlight in this picture to give some sense of scale … the drawing is roughly 50 inches by 50 inches. You don’t want to know how covered in charcoal I was after this!

And I’ve also been having a terrific time exploring the finer points of block printing! It’s been a complete blast doing these so far … and I am discovering all kinds of things about mark making, and the correlation between the way I draw and the way I use the knives to carve the blocks. I am quite happy with the results of these test prints … so expect to see some of this work in October for sure:

A 6″ x 6″ test print … carved, based on one of the hundreds of photos I’ve taken of nests for this body of work.

And …

A smaller test print, roughly 3″ x 3″. It’s been really interesting to think about the positive and negative space in carving these – working through the best way to convey some sense of three dimensional space in the final print.

And of course, there’s other things going on in the background … I am exhibiting the Archives of Absence work at the Naess Gallery in September, including brand new work that is an extension of the original project; I am thinking about the work I will out together for an exhibition in February 2013 in Toronto (more to come on both of these soon) … waiting to hear back about a grant application Marian and I applied for to develop the York Hotel work we shot in September 2011 … thinking about places to send exhibition proposals. Oh, and occasionally, I have the time and gumption to do something around the house.

And on that note … off to bed! Another early start Monday! Hope you all had a good weekend!

Throwing open the studio doors, and installing nests!

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Ok – finally a minute to catch my breath a little, and catch up on other parts of life – including some writing here!

The Summer Solstice marked several related annual arts events at Harcourt House, including the openings for the Members’ show, the Naked Show, and the Artist-in-Residence Open Studio. Even a barbecue on the front lawn, for good measure! It’s a lovely event, and it brings together a wide range of artists and arts-supporters for the evening. It was a busy evening, in the end – we had about 250 people through the Annex Building alone, and I had many many visitors to my studio over the course of the night. I gave several demonstrations of gel-transfer printmaking, and had some fantastic conversations with people about the work I’m doing for the Residency, and about art in general.

… outside the Annex …

We were blessed with good weather in the lead-up, and for the event, so that helped things fall onto place relatively easily. Good thing too – since my fellow nest-installers and I spent a day and a half swinging from the high end of ladders in preparation for the visitors!

I had decided months back that one of the things I wanted to do during my time as AIR was to produce some work specifically for the Open Studio event; a subset of the work for the Residency as a whole. I thought it would be a great way to set a milestone for myself a little over half way into the year. Also a perfect opportunity to push my practice, and think of my work in a specifically public context: what it meant to make work that would be outside a gallery setting, that would be on/in somewhat unconventional places, and that would be viewed not only by people attending the event, but also passersby on the street after the fact.

This set of circumstances raised all sorts of new challenges for me – not the least of which was setting myself the task of working with new materials, in explicitly new ways: fun with industrial plastics, and three-dimensional work! Do I sound like a glutton for punishment? maybe a little … but the most general goal I had set for myself in the Residency was to really expand my practice and work in new ways and larger scale than I ever had before … . At any rate, it was a great process – an excellent learning experience, and a whole lot of fun, start to finish. The poor fellow at the plastics company I was dealing with must have thought I was crazy … and (not terribly surprising, this) he’d never worked with an artist before, so there were some moments we had over the phone in which we had to figure out how to speak each other’s language … but we did get it sorted, and he was very helpful in providing solid advice about the best choices in materials for what I wanted to do. But I digress …

I had set out to create a set of nest sculptures that would be eye-catching, both in scale and colour. And I wanted to install the work on or near both the Harcourt House Annex building (where my studio is), and on the main building (the home of the office and Gallery for Harcourt). I also wanted to draw from the research I had done on birds’ nests at the beginning of the Residency, and construct sets or groups of nests that were each based loosely on particular nest-building patterns found in nature. Keeping in mind that these structures were basically abstractions of the forms found on nature, I wanted to allow each type/shape to develop it’s own personality in relation to the materials … and of course, part of the process was learning about both the potential and the limits of the materials I had chosen. Making this work became a real dialogue, in that sense – the push and pull between the idea and the execution, the potential and the limits. Great lessons in process and attentiveness.

… and black ‘weaver’ nests in the stairwell …

The general idea around this set of sculptures is as follows:

21st Century Nesting Practices is a collection of sculptures that consider the connection and relationship between materials, structures, and notions of stability and security. Although birds are selective in their use of nesting materials, they are also highly adaptable and resourceful creatures. Nest-builders will often use whatever material is available, including bits of plastic – a material that has become synonymous not only with 21st century life (particularly in the more economically secure West), but also with environmental degradation and pollution. These whimsical, fantastical – and totally impractical – nests point to human use of natural resources and about what we consider appropriate levels of material comfort and security. Nests installed in various locations in and around Harcourt House and the Harcourt Annex are loosely based on the nesting structures created by African Weavers, Common Sparrows, Bohemian Waxwings, and Herons.

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In the end, I was quite happy with the range of work – some nests were quite whimsical and simply fun, while others had a simple sort of elegance to them that I found striking in a completely different way. Each taught me a great deal about the use of negative space and grouping in sculpture, and about the dynamics between form, scale, and colour. And …there were other, equally valuable lessons in the whole process – making the work, installing it, the open house … all of it:

- the rewards of really seeing and paying attention

- how to remain flexible and adaptable in making work

- that some of the best results can come from unexpected places, and how important a sense of play can be

- and … how not to take it all too seriously.

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Tag Archives: Artist in residence

A change in season, a change in space

Phew! NEST has opened, and I think I’m starting to decompress a bit ….

Just a few days … !!

Four Weeks, as of Today …

Books! Printed, Collated and Bound!

Much Afoot …

The Last Push … and what it might mean

Nesting, or Obsessing … Take Your Pick!

Throwing open the studio doors, and installing nests!

Up from Under …

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