SNAP has done a fantastic job of keeping everyone safe for the last several months, and the Members’ Show & Sale will be no exception. For folks who prefer to limit their exposure outside their bubbles/cohort, you can shop the entire show online too.
I feel extremely grateful to be part of this community, and even more so that I will have work in this exhibition along side so many talented SNAP artists.
Check it out online or in person – it’s going to be lovely!
A good way to celebrate the Season and start toward a New Year:
I am very happy to announce that a selection of my work is now available for sale or rental through the Art Gallery of Alberta!
I think this is a great program from the AGA – renting work is a very cost-effective way to live with art you love, and – if you can’t live without it – a portion of your rental fees for the first 6 months of a rental can go toward a purchase!
And Art Rental and Sales at the AGA showcases the work of more than 150 Alberta artists working in a wide range of media and styles – so it feels especially good to be in such good company, and working with an organization that supports local creators.
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.
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.
If you get over there – drop me a line and let me know your thoughts! I’d like to hear from you.
I am looking toward the Opening of Chaotic Bodies this Thursday at Mile Zero Dance – and not surprisingly, I am thinking a great deal about relationship, space, and how our bodies convey information.
What we communicate with gesture and movement is so vital to our understanding – to meaning-making – but also to the way and amount of space we occupy.
All this to say: one of the things I wanted to consider in the creation of Chaotic Bodies was how bodies communicate ideas of control, balance, containment, connection, release … .
And then I came across the amazing work of artist/metalsmith Jennifer Crupi.
So much food for thought here: the controlled gesture. The canonization of particular movements that render them significant, understood as physical language that conveys information through relationship to other, to space.
I find the language here telling too. The Power Gesture object requires the user to assume a particular position, as do all of these sculptural objects: (con)forming to set positions to send a message.
Pondering further: if we wish to convey information bodily, how do we control or contain that which we wish to remain hidden? What if we can’t? What if our actions in space and in relationship express or reflect what we see around us, rather than what we feel? Or conversely: what if we cannot help but express the uncontrollable within us?
These thoughts & questions, amongst others, have informed the work in Chaotic Bodies. I have no fixed answers – but am enjoying the journey through the questions.
The CARFAC National Conference and AGM is tomorrow – Saturday, June 3rd!
It’s going to be a good weekend, and it’s exciting to know that here will be visual artists from all over the country here this weekend, discussing issues and advocacy initiatives pertinent to artists’ careers.
There’s also going to be programming Saturday Evening and Sunday afternoon – so it’s not ‘all work and no play.’
I’m looking forward very much to hearing from other parts of the country, and to reconnecting with artists I haven’t seen for far too long.
Information below – there’s still time to register and join us:
Visual Arts Alberta – CARFAC wants to help artists attend, so they are offering bursaries to help with conference costs:
Visual Arts Alberta – CARFAC is offering up to six bursaries of $200.00 each to Visual Arts Alberta – CARFAC members living outside of the Greater Edmonton area who will be attending the CARFAC National Conference in Edmonton on the weekend of June 2nd to 4th.
These bursaries are based on need.
Applicants need to write an up-to-one page letter describing why a bursary would help. Applications must be in by Thursday May 18th at 4:00pm. Send the letter to chris@visualartsalberta.com.
They will notify the winners by Saturday, May 20th at 4:00pm.
PLEASE pass this on to any visual artists who may want to attend, but would find the costs of travel a hinderance.
A lovely piece on history, time, change – and sense of place. What place means when it is rendered in the first person, and intimately connected to the sights and sounds in a landscape? We are each responsible for the reality we inhabit, in all ways.
Have a good weekend, everyone.
My father was born and raised in Montreal in the first half of the last century. He served in the RCAF (briefly) and the Royal Canadian Navy (less briefly) during World War II. In the ’60s he…
I wrote last month about a dance/choreography project I am involved in – RUCKUS – and wanted to offer an update on Anastasia’s progress for funding this phase of the work.
The GoFundMe campaign has raised$1200 so far – which is exciting – HUGE THANK YOU to everyone that has supported this so far!
That $1200 is about 70% of the goal for the project – so, it’s doing well – but it’s getting down to the wire to make the last 30%, so that everyone involved can be paid properly for their work to make this project a reality.
This is a really exciting chapter in my practice, I would really love to be able to continue to work with these fine dancers and choreographers.
If you would like to help support this work, there’s still time to contribute (even the price of a coffee out will make a difference) – our collective, RUCKUS-filled thanks.
I had the pleasure earlier this fall of working with Anastasia Maywood, Krista Posyniak, and Alison Kause (and a group of amazing dancers!) on a new dance work-in-progress called RUCKUS.
Anastasia has been given a residency by the Good Women Dance Collective in Edmonton to develop the work further, and has launched a GoFundMe Campaign to support the residency work, so that we can bring RUCKUS to life as a more fully-developed work.
I am so excited by this collaborative process, and being able to create sculptural work specifically for people (dancers) to interact with has been both challenging and a whole lot of fun. What this work is teaching me about sculpture and space is invaluable, and I am working with some wonderful, intelligent and talented women in making this idea a reality.
If you would like to support this project, you can help Create a RUCKUS here!
Rivals thoughts come at a particularly opportune moment, as I am heading to the CARFAC National conference and AGM in Montreal.
The problematic nature of the gallery-as-institution has direct implications for the ability of artists to have the opportunity to show work, to experiment, as Riva so eloquently discusses.
There’s also this … Who gets to show, where, and why also has direct economic implications on an umber of levels (including the ability of artists to earn a copyright-based licensing fee for the exhibition of their work in public galleries, artist-runs, and museums).
Much food for thought here …
… and no doubt, much more to come over the next few days …
