Tag Archives: studio

Patience

2 Replies

I am told it is Spring in this part of the world. I feel (given the snow and cold the last couple of days) that this is really a sad little joke, that’s rapidly wearing very very thin. I haven’t even got my usual bout of ‘spring fever’ yet … and that’s really odd!

I feel like I am at one end …

IMG_5070

… and not likely to see the other end anytime soon.

It’s an exercise in patience.

And every once in a while (probably not nearly often enough!) I am given one of these lessons – or several in a row. This is a good thing, I think, because even at the best of times making work can become about the ‘product’ or the ‘end result’ rather than the process of making.

I want to see the results immediately:

IMG_5064

It can be difficult to remain mindful of being in the moment with the work and what it is teaching at that point when deadlines are tugging at your sleeve demanding that you “finish” the thing you are making. I often feel the need to move faster …

IMG_5066

… and usually at times when the best course of action is the exact opposite.

Or when the to-do list is getting longer and longer, and each thing on it seems to take far longer than you wished to get done – or you need to be in two (or more) places at once … .

IMG_5065

This is an ongoing battle for me, and my growing excitement at getting close to realizing a body of work doesn’t help one bit. If anything, it makes it worse!

Still, it is a busy, busy time, and things are in fact moving ahead on a number of fronts – and actually, much faster than it feels to me just now.

Work on the YORK project is moving along really well – files are off to the printers, and if the initial proofs are any indication, the final prints are going to be worth seeing! I’ve also just received an order of acrylic at the studio, and the shelves and brackets we need for the exhibition should be finished in the next two weeks. Mould-making and casting is progressing – slowly, but well – so really, it’s all coming together!

… and maybe Spring will come together soon too …

buds2

*the signs referring to equipment on Star Trek vessels are from a secret location in Edmonton. I will only say that I am so happy that thanks to the highly bureaucratic nature of the place  where these signs are posted, no one proofread the text before the order went in …

A change in season, a change in space

6 Replies

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!

Much Afoot …

9 Replies

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!

 

Nesting, or Obsessing … Take Your Pick!

4 Replies

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:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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!

3 Replies

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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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.

Up from Under …

Leave a reply

The dearth of posts here of late has been due in large part to being a bit (ok, a lot) snowed with work … the usual “I need to clone myself” thing I get into on occasion. In this particular instance, it’s been a combination of being out of the studio due to travel, coupled with several projects coming due all at once. It’s been a very busy, hectic spring any which way I look at it … Catalysts coming out and the launch here and trip to Toronto for that, the talk to the Dirt City, Dream City group of artists, the Curiosities exhibition work, dropping work at my Calgary gallery for a group show that opens at the end of June, grant writing, ongoing work for the Residency … and of course there’s always so much more that goes on ‘behind the scenes’ – reading, research, and (gee, who know??) life-related things like spending a bit of time with family and friends, the more prosaic things like laundry and (very) occasional sleep.

The  real push for the last three weeks or so has been associated with the upcoming  annual Harcourt House Member’s Show and Open House. This opening and events related to it coincide with the start of the 10-day-long Works Art & Design Festival here in Edmonton.

The Harcourt House event is on June 21st:

Once a year, Harcourt House Artist Run Centre invites its diverse membership to exhibit in this non-juried, salon-style exhibition, which always boasts a fabulously eclectic range of art and disciplines. Photography, painting, sculpture, drawing, mixed and new media; this is the gallery where you can see it all, and show your support by purchasing that perfect piece of original artwork.
Opening night:
Open Studios
Free Model Session
Unveiling of the 2012 Annex Mural plan
2011/2012 Artist in Residence
Gel Transfer Demo
AIR “Meet and Greet”
A special surprise on the Annex… Its a bird, its a plane, its… its….
Front Yard BBQ and Beer Gardens: Cash only, 6:30 – 10pm
In the Annex Building: Annual Naked Show Exhibition
In the Harcourt House Gallery: Annual Membership Exhibition

I will be throwing my studio doors open for the evening, and inviting people in to see the work so far; I’ll be doing a demonstration of gel-transfer printmaking, and I have some new mixed media assemblage work in the Member’s Show in the main gallery at Harcourt House as well.

I have been working rather furiously on one component of the NEST project that will be launched on the 21st … photos to come, once the work is up and the event on the 21st takes place!

It’s been an exciting time  - tiring, but worth every second of lost sleep.

I hope to see some of you there on the 21st!~

Nesting, nesting, one-two-three …

5 Replies

I’ve had a good couple of days in the studio since getting back from my Wet Coast adventuring. Perhaps it’s the first (snow-covered!) stirrings of spring, combined with my very productive meetings with Catherine, but I am feeling real momentum and focus building in this body work.

This, I would say, is a very good sign!

I’ve been poring over the (literally) hundreds of photos I’ve taken for this project, and have begun working with them to integrate them into the body of work for final exhibition. Initially, they started as a body of ‘field notes’ : a visual record of physical artifacts/objects that would serve as touch points for both drawing and sculptural work. But they’ve since taken on a life of their own … and I don’t foresee an end to my obsessive photographing of bird’s nests any time soon!

So … I’ve started to play, and so far I am quite intrigued by the results:

*when I get through this, I may not have any fingerprints left!

Each time I look at these images, I am struck with the singularity of each form. No two nests are ever, it seems, at all alike – even though they are all created by the same species of bird. There’s an assertive sort of presence to them, even when they are in disrepair and obviously abandoned; an undercurrent of defiance in their obviousness in the landscape (even in summer they stand out like sore thumbs). It’s almost as though something of the personality of the birds themselves is expressed through the structures they create. Just recently, I’ve seen two fine examples of this connection – the ‘KBO’ mentality of magpies: 1) a pair of magpies, building a nest in a tree in a driving snow and wind, and 2) a second solo magpie, building a nest in a tree above a street in the heart of downtown, surrounded by traffic, streetlights, people, noise and exhaust. Obviously, there were options to do otherwise in both cases, but for some reason, this is what had to happen for these birds in that moment … and so it did.

And with that … I am off to the studio. That has to happen too!

New Studio, Part II

Leave a reply

Been a hectic couple of months.

Getting settled slowly back into life out West, back at work, setting up the studio, and getting some work done in there as well.

I’ve been working on a series of small work for Love, Me in Halifax … this little series is all revolving around keys, and their symbolic significance and all the cultural resonances they have. Quite fun, and I may continue in this vein for a little bit – I’d like to explore some more interactive ideas employing the keys too.  I really like the idea of making work that people can engage with directly.

More on this later – with pics of the work going East!  *If you’re in Halifax, you will be able to see the work up close and personal at Love, Me next month some time.

Now … as promised: pics from the new studio!

… some of the interesting bits of stuff I’ve acquired here, and brought back from Nova Scotia. This should keep me busy for a while!

To give you an idea of the scale of my collecting “habit,” here’s a shot of the entire shelf of stuff:

A little bit of everything here! Driftwood, bark, animal bones, rusty metal things (of course!) from various places, including the docks and hte railway lines near Halifax harbour, oil lamps (also rusty) … gears and cogs of various types. net, wire, dried kelp, other sea bits, shells, loads of feathers … various ephemera.  All treats to my eyes.

New Studio!!!

1 Reply

Back in Alberta, and hit the ground running. It was a fabulous year in Halifax, but it is also really quite good to be back on the Prairie.  Sky is so big here – I’d forgotten that, and how amazing clouds and storms are. Also absolutely lovely to reconnect with the people I know out here. I’ve really missed this community, and it’s been great to see everyone again!

I’ve been going nuts without a studio, and much to my utter delight, space has come available at Harcourt House, where i had studio space before the trip to Nova Scotia … so I’m back in the same building, just a couple of doors down form where I was previously. Signed the lease and got keys today … so it’s moving time!!

So looking forward to being set up and starting to work again … it’s been sweet torture going through the boxes of things I’ve brought back from Halifax to work with. So many things to play with and experiments to try!

Photos of the space soon, I hope – once I’ve got set up!