Category: Community

Connections between individuals or groups that inform my work in some way

Slippages – video of the performance

Back in Edmonton now, doing some post-performance and post-Thanksgiving work: the “get yer ducks in a row” for the next work to be done.

Much to be thankful for, as always – being able to make work with talented collaborators, the opportunity to share ideas and approaches here and in person, the tremendous support I receive from my family and friends (without whom none of this would be possible).

So – a brief moment to take stock, and to share a link to the video of the performance shot for Livestream on October 5th.

Click on the IMAGE BELOW to go to the UBC School of Music’s video:

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Exhibition Walk Through: MAKE=BELIEVE, in Archived Land – Terrain Archivé

There’s one more week to see Archived Land – Terrain Archivé at Jackson Power Gallery in Edmonton.

The show closes 5pm September 29th.  Gallery hours are by appointment (780-499-7635) during the week, and Noon – 5 pm on Saturday.

For those of you who can’t make it in person, here’s a short video walk-through of my installation, MAKE=BELIEVE. Hope you enjoy it. (turn ON your sound!)

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Opening Archived Terrain – Terrain Archivé

Had a lovely time at the Opening Reception for Archived Terrain – Terrain Archivé this past Friday night.

A HUGE Thank You to everyone that came out on a busy evening, with less than ideal weather!

We all had a busy night; lots of lovely conversations, and thoughtful comments. The best way to launch new work into the world.

I was also really happy that the lovely humans that have supported this project from the outset – and on whose land the original living installation sits – were able to attend and see this first foray into taking the MAKE=BELIEVE project into a different context! looking forward to lots of chats and feedback from them on this exhibition!

For those of you who weren’t able to be there last Friday: Archived Terrain – Terrain Archivé is up until 5pm September 29th. Regular hours are NOON – 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays – other times by appointment.

I will be gallery sitting on Sunday, September 23rd, NOON – 5pm, if you want to visit!

Some images of my installation/room below:

the entryway
photo montage of animals in the installation on the farm
tail of an old windmill from the farm; what we do to bend the land to our purposes never lasts
a sun and compass from found objects
video installation
the windmill tail again
digitally manipulated photo and found object installation … the immigrant/homestead experience is part of this work
3 digitally manipulated photographs; human use of raw materials becomes camouflage
my work out in the hallway, too!
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Archived Land – Terrain Archivé

I am very happy to say that I will be presenting some brand-new work in a group show coming up very soon!

Details below – I look forward to seeing anyone in the area who cam make it to the Opening Reception.

Exhibition hours after the Opening are listed in the invitation, or by appointment.


Exhibit image (altered): Provincial Archives of Alberta #GR1983.0421

Some information about the exhibition:

ARCHIVED LAND : TERRAIN ARCHIVÉ   at Jackson Power Gallery, Edmonton September 15 to 29

2ndfl, 9744 60 Ave, Edmonton, AB

Opening reception 7pm, September 14, 2018

Exhibit hours: Noon to 5pm

Saturdays and Sundays, September 15 to 29

Or by appointment: 780-499-7635

 

Jackson Power Gallery presents Archived Land : Terrain Archivé, the final exhibit before the gallery closes its doors.

Land holds memory: layered, fragmented, buried, or strongly etched.  It represents identity and connection to our own history and to those who came before us; a narrative landscape that intersects human experience and the natural world.

The gallery’s layout of separate but interconnected rooms forms an environment for individual artist’s interpretation of the theme, providing the visitor with the perception of movement through time and place.

Exhibiting artists:

BELLE//MONDO

Une initiative par collaborateurs/a collaborative initiative by:

Patrick Arès-Pilon & Conor McNally

BELLE//MONDO vous invite à rentrer dans un assemblage de photographie tirée de vrai pellicule diapo Ektachrome datant de 1997.  Cette oeuvre place un regard sur les environnements naturels et bâtis captée sur le territoire du traité numéro 6 incluant à Edmonton, Spruce Grove et La Sapinière en 2018.

BELLE//MONDO welcomes you to enter an immersive photography installation using vintage 35mm Ektachrome slide film (frozen since 1997). This collaborative work features layered sights of natural and built environments captured on Treaty 6 land in and around Edmonton, Spruce Grove & La Sapinière in 2018.

 

Paddy Lamb

Paddy considers himself to be a Canadian, Irish, Ulster Scots, Quaker, Huguenot, Celtic, Proto-Indo-European citizen of the world. His painting, drawing, and installation work acknowledges the role of landscape as a repository for our history, culture and collective memory, exploring the imprint of society on nature and how we form deep and lasting attachments to the land. His work is also a form of self-examination – a search for alternatives that continue to define his ‘sense of place’.

 

Sydney Lancaster

Sydney’s multidisciplinary practice explores the complicated position the individual inhabits in relation to ideas of place, land & ownership, and the ways in which both people and spaces are ‘written upon’ by larger social-political-cultural narratives over time. She is interested in the realities exposed by branches that only bend so far and how newer growth offers much more flexibility, but less strength for supporting weight.

Ultimately, her work is about how we understand and make sense of the land and the space between us.

 

Marlena Wyman

As a long-time archivist and now Edmonton’s Historian Laureate, Marlena Wyman’s art practice is informed by history, and her rural Alberta upbringing provides her with a deep connection to land.

We interpret our memories and identities in part through traces of past lives, whether of our ancestors or others. A haunting photograph or a handwritten passage in the diary or a letter of a long dead stranger can create a profound personal connection.

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Drawing Lesson

I am not usually one to share ‘inspirational’ talks or pithy quotes. To be honest, most of that kind of thing leaves me flat – sorry if that seems cynical or jaded, but there’s a tendency toward the superficial ‘instafix’ in this culture that is served by this material.

However – I have also been thinking a great deal about the power of art & creativity to open doors to new ways of thinking and being. Especially pertinent to my mind, given the propensity toward tribalism and divisive language and action in the world today.

And then I came across this:

This little talk  by Graham Shaw is all about breaking down patterns of thinking – about understanding better the limitations we impose upon ourselves (and others).

It is gentle and fun – and if you are in the tl;dr world – skip to the end if you must – but I do recommend the 15 minutes it takes to view the whole thing.

Good stuff for a Monday.

Be well.

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Just a very few more days …

… and Chaotic Bodies will close at Spazio Performativo.

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Amazing how fast the month has gone by – I’ve been too buried in the never-ending-cold-that-should-be-spring here to actually grasp that time is really passing quite quickly, and we are over 1/4 of the way through the year.

It has been a great experience re-working this project for static exhibition – being able to look at it again with fresh eyes, dig back into the ideas simmering inside it – and see what  potential there was in the conversations between media.

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My sincere thanks to Mile Zero Dance for the opportunity to show this work!! And my thanks to everyone involved in the RUCKUS dance project for allowing me to develop this project further, and to use the footage from rehearsals and performance in the video work!

SO: if you want to check out Chaotic Bodies before it disappears into storage again, you have until SUNDAY April 8th. I am striking the show on Monday!

If you have the opportunity, see the work both in the daytime and at night: I have a video work rear-projected in the window that is best seen after dark, and the installation and drawings are available for viewing during opening hours daytime at Mile Zero, and of course in advance of evening events.

Lancaster Chaotic Bodies Promo 4

If you get over there – drop me a line and let me know your thoughts! I’d like to hear from you.

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by Categories: abarts, Community, Dance, drawing, Exhibitions, featured, new work, Projects, Sculpture, yegarts, yegdtTags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Residencies: A Primer

I will be presenting a Professional Development talk in Edmonton on March 27th 2018. This will be an all-access Webinar, so anyone interested outside of Edmonton can participate as well. Please see the details below to register.

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Free for Visual Arts Alberta ~ CARFAC members, $45 to non-members.
RSVP by 4pm on Friday, March 23. For more information, contact Sharon at (780) 421-1731 or email us.

If you prefer learning in the company of others, you may participate in Edmonton at the Visual Arts Alberta ~ CARFAC Project Space. 3rd Floor, 10215 112 St. Edmonton, AB.

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Chaotic Bodies Opening Thursday Mar 8!

I am excited to be presenting a dance-infused project in Mile Zero Dance’s Spazio Gallery!

The multi-media installation Chaotic Bodies will be on view in the window gallery until April 8th, so stop by Mile Zero Dance and have a look. (after dark the work takes on a new life!)

If you are in the area, please join us for the Opening Reception for this work at Mile Zero’s Spazio Performativo on Thursday March 8, from 6:30 – 8:00pm, and stay for Dirt Buffet Cabaret, curated by Liam Cody.

Chaotic Bodies is a series of works derived from photographic and video documentation of RUCKUS, a work-in-progress choreographed by Anastasia Maywood, Krista Posnyiuk, and Alison Kause. My goal with Chaotic Bodies is to explore the visual echoes of my engagement with the dancers and the choreography, with their bodies in space, and their responses through movement to the sculptural work I created.

I would like to extend my deep thanks to Anastasia Maywood, Krista Posnyiuk, Alison Kause, Ainsley Hillyard, Kate Stashko, & Alida Kendell for welcoming me into their work on RUCKUS (past & future), and for their generous an insightful feedback as I worked with them to make the ideas specific to their creative process tangible. I am grateful also for their permission to use footage and stills from rehearsals and performances in the presentation of this project at Mile Zero Dance.

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And there it was … gone!

21st Century Nesting Practices has closed, and it’s all been packed and stored away again.

So strange, that process: how things come out of boxes and wrapping to take on a life of their own for a while, and then disappear again.

It was a great experience – a lovely way to come ‘full circle’ with this work and see it from a different vantage point (coming out on the other side, so to speak).

That was in fact the case when a delightful group of poets I had worked with in 2007 (a decade, already?!) came to the gallery to do a reading of work from a collaborative collection titled Eyeing the Magpie. It was nice to re-connect with these poets, and to have this bird-inspired work presented in the context of this exhibition was really fun. My thanks to Nancy MacKenzie, Anna Mioduchowska, Julie C Robinson, Myrna Garanis, and Rusti Lehay (all pictured below) for presenting their work!

 

I am so grateful to the McMullen Gallery for the opportunity to exhibit this body of work; the context and the feedback I received throughout the exhibition was invaluable to me, and allowed me to see my work and my practice as a whole in a new way.

Deep Thanks also to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, for the support in creating the soundscape for this exhibition!

So now, a shift to new things – the first inklings of the coming spring are in the air, a new project going up for exhibition this week, and lots of studio work and new ideas percolating.

 

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One more Week, and an Event!

This is the last week that 21st Century Nesting Practices is on exhibition at the McMullen Gallery. Amazing how fast the time has gone by!

The exhibition closes  on Sunday February 25th; morning of the 26th, I’ll be in the gallery, packing up the work.

In the mean time though – pop in if you have a chance, and if you like poetry as well as visual art, there’s a special event happening in conjunction with the exhibition this week:

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I had the pleasure of working with these lovely writers a few years ago – and I am so happy that they are bringing their work to the gallery to share in amongst all my nests!

Almost all of the bird’s nests in 21st Century Nesting Practices are in fact magpie nests – that resilient, ever-so-smart-and-sassy bird that is such a big part of the avian landscape here.

I’m looking forward to this very much – and hope some of you can make it too.

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