Tag: gel transfer

Branching Out …

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!

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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.

A nice start to the week!

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Upcoming Residency and Workshop

I will be heading out to the East Coast soon!

I’ve been  accepted to a 2 week Research and Development Residency for a new project in Nova Scotia.

I’ll be in Parrsboro, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy for a couple of weeks – excited to be spending some time on this beautiful shore again, and looking forward to getting up to Joggins as well, to visit the Fossil Cliffs and The Fossil Centre there too!

While I’m out there, I will be conducting a 2-session workshop on Gel Transfer Printmaking at Main & Station, who are the lovely folks who offer the Residency program I will be attending.

Gel Transfer Workshop Poster DRAFT 2.pages

Looking forward to getting started on this new project, and to facilitating the workshop.

If you’re going to be in the Parrsboro area July 13 – 15, I hope you can join us at Main & Station!

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A thought …

… that I came across today. A quote, actually, from Martin Creed, that sums up some of the ideas that have been rolling around in my head for a while now.

On a more literal level, working some of this out through the creation of the original Boundary|Time|Surface installation in 2014, and in other ways in the work that arose from it and that is now on exhibition in Newfoundland.

At any rate, Creed said:

“I started thinking about the difficulty of drawing lines on a map, making country borders, which is exactly the same as drawing on a piece of paper. Any definite border is against nature and against life.”

Things bleed into one another; that is the reality of it all. Eventually, all the myriad ways of dividing up the world (and ourselves) break down and erode. The edges get fuzzy, or float away.

These compartments we build are convenient, but they are illusions.

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View from cliff top
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View facing the cliff at Green Point

Thanks Martin, I needed that today.

{SOURCE: “Martin Creed on Why Art Can’t Ignore the World around It” by Philomela Epps, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-martin-creed-on-why-art-can-t-ignore-the-world-around-it}

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Boundary|Time|Surface is Open!

It’s been very quiet here lately … and a bit frantic everywhere else in my life.

Just got back from a week in Newfoundland, installing Boundary|Time|Surface at the Discovery Centre Gallery in Gros Morne National Park! The exhibition will be up for the entire season – until early October 2016. If you have a chance to visit this magical place, please drop in, and let me know what you think!

It was lovely to be back in Woody Point. It’s a gorgeous spot on the planet, and the terrific people out there make it even better. The staff of Parks Canada and all the folks I’ve met in Woody Point and Rocky Harbour are part of what makes Gros Morne so special to me; it’s been more like a family reunion than going to work. Waking up to whales playing in Bonne Bay every morning didn’t hurt either!

It was a hectic, challenging, tiring week – but worth it to see this work up and complete in a way I’ve not had the opportunity to experience until now. It’s a very interesting process/experience, seeing the work all together for the first time; there’s always that element of wondering if what you’d envisioned would really make sense in the space, as an integrated series of pieces that speak to the viewer both individually and as a whole.

Here’s a (very short) video walk-thru of the exhibition (apologies for the slightly shaky footage – handheld on a phone isn’t ideal, I know):

And a few still images of the work as well:

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I wanted to take a moment to thank some people for their help in making this exhibition a reality …

John Waldron – my geological partner in life, the universe, and everything, scientific collaborator, resource person, and tech troubleshooter extraordinaire

Jennifer Galliott – artist, entrepreneur, and top notch exhibition install assistant (she makes a mean latte too!)

Rob Hingston – and Parks Canada for having faith in the project, and bringing the exhibition to the Discovery Centre

Bruce Gillam – for his assistance with the lighting, cabling, and making things the best they could be

It’s time to  regroup a bit, nurse my colossal jet lag and exhaustion – and start to get organized for the next round of work and travel … more on that in a bit.

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Bed

After all the busy-ness of the last few months, working on York:Moments, it has been a welcome thing to have a wee bit of time to reflect on the work that went into the project, and what it meant to bring the work back to the community.
What a gift that experience has been.
In the aftermath of our portion of the project, I’ve also had some fantastic conversations with people … two of which led me back to this post, which I wrote back in 2013 while Marian and I were working on the original YORK material.
I feel like it sums up a good deal about York:Moments as well … the way that work opened up some space to talk about the tension between ‘public’ and ‘private’ configurations of space, who has the power to determine the future of both public & private spaces, how sanctuaries of various types are crucial for the health and sustainability of neighbourhoods. How safe spaces can hold memories, how they can contribute to story-making, and the preservation of histories of all sorts.

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Elsewhere …

A thoroughly apropos title.

After the busy-ness of getting the work up for exhibition, and then the opening reception on the 9th, I thought life was going to slow a little bit. Not so.

I have been elsewhere (metaphorically) – catching up on all sorts of things that needed attending to.

Amongst those ‘to-do’ list items: A few images from the exhibition, and the curator’s essay.

A quick shot of the installation work I did in the exterior window of the gallery. The quotation is taken from Roger-Pol Droit's lovely book, entitled How Are Things? It seemed to sum up so perfectly that I have been striving for, in this body of work, and in my practice as a whole.
A quick shot of the installation work I did in the exterior window of the gallery. The quotation is taken from Roger-Pol Droit’s lovely book, entitled How Are Things? It seemed to sum up so perfectly that I have been striving for, in this body of work, and in my practice as a whole.
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Another quick shot, this a face-on view of the main window.
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A closer shot, showing some of the detail. I will be back out to the gallery shortly, to shoot a proper set of images of the work, but this does give you some idea.

And inside the gallery …

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Our curator, Brenda Barry Byrne, has written an essay examining the use of memory in my work and Brenda Danbrook‘s. You can fine it online here, and a PDF can be accessed here: Elsewhere – Curator’s Essay – Jan 2015.

There’s also an interview with Brenda Danbrook and me in the Sherwood Park News. PDF of it here: Elsewhere – Sherwood Park News Article Jan 2015

This exhibition took the effort of many minds and hands to produce. My thanks to my co-exhibitor, Brenda Danbrook, and to Brenda Barry Byrne for comments, support, and great input and feedback, and to Strathcona County, for building such a beautiful gallery in which to show work!

My thanks and gratitude too to Kaylee Low from Gallery @ 501, Paddy Lamb, and Angele Karosi for their help in getting the work on the walls, and to Sara McKarney for helping me pack it and John Waldron for getting me and the work to the gallery!

Couldn’t have done it without you!

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What Happens the Rest of the Time

Many preparations afoot for the upcoming opening of Elsewhere  on January 9 2015.

What it all amounts to is what happens ‘the rest of the time’ in the work of working on my practice.

And for the last several days, that has looked like:

400 square feet of ethafoam

two large rolls of bubble wrap

half a roll of cling wrapping

three and a half rolls of packing tape

20 feet of 12″ diameter concrete forms

48 square feet of foamcore

a large roll of heavy weight plastic sheet

cardboard … lots of corrugated cardboard

several large tubs

And this:

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**Extra-special thanks to amazing artist Sara McKarney for her mad preparator-skills and help with some of the packing!

… and once all of that was done, it looked like this:

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AND special thanks to John Waldron for the assistance with packing the truck and getting all of this, and me, to the gallery to unload!

So. That bit is done: work is packed and delivered to the gallery, and installation of the exhibition will begin January 5th. (ah, the glamourous life!)

In a bit of serendipity, this evening I came across a pertinent bit of writing concerning the whole subject of the artist’s life and practice. It’s a speech by artist Teresita Fernandez, and it hits so many salient points. Read excerpts (and hear it too) at the lovely Brain Pickings, here.

But first – before I get back to considering all of the relative successes and potential failures in this and other work to come, I can actually take a little bit of time and catch my breath, and reacquaint myself with the world outside my studio walls (like my kitchen … oh, ya … and the laundry).

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Elsewhere

I am very happy to announce that I will be exhibiting work with the talented Brenda Danbrook at Gallery @ 501 in Sherwood Park AB this coming January.

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There will be a short informal artists’ talk at the opening reception.

I hope to see some of you there.

And until then … I’ll be in the studio doing last-minute preparation and packing the work!

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A Small Exhibition & Sale: Archives of Absence out in the world again

I am showing some of the work from the Archives of Absence project at Credo in Edmonton over the next while. The work went up this past Friday (February 22nd), and will be up for a few weeks.

It’s good to have this work out in the world again – it’s always good to revisit projects after a while away, I think, to see if they still ‘ring true’ for starters, but also to see what new things can be learned from them.

Berm: Epilogue
Berm: Epilogue

I certainly understand the importance of this project to my practice in a new way now. Archives of Absence really marked a shift in materials for me, and the dawning of my understanding of how crucial the specificity of place was to the way I make work. This project was also a very dynamic collaboration between me and (the very gifted) poet Catherine Owen, which brought my attention back to  the beauty of words and the joy of writing after a many-years distance. You can read more about the project, and all of its components here and here.

Berm: Further Liminalities
Berm: Further Liminalities

I really enjoy many of the images that came out of this project – and I hope the people who come and go at Credo enjoy them as well.

Berm: Fragments
Berm: Fragments
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At Odds – The Opening!

The opening of At Odds on Thursday was great fun. Lovely evening, and a really nice turn out, despite the cold. Thanks to everyone who made the trek, and special thanks to everyone at the Art Gallery of St Albert!

I feel I am in really great company in this exhibition – Susan Seright’s book works and Claire Uhlick‘s paintings are lovely. If you are in the Edmonton-St. Albert area, come by the gallery and see for yourself – the exhibition is up until March 1 2014.

It was really good to see the new work that I’d done this autumn in Halifax up in a gallery setting, along with some of the earlier work in the series. Came away with lots of new ideas, and a better sense of refinements that I want to make. Got some really valuable feedback on the work, both at the opening, and in the last couple of days. It’s a brilliant thing to be able to get that kind of input. Sometimes, it’s difficult to get the distance one needs to really see the work, so that’s when knowing there are solid, critical voices one can trust out there  – a real community – becomes incredibly important, and valuable.

A couple of nice articles/interviews about the show too  – The Leader and The Gazette both did preview pieces on the show.

Here’s a few pictures from the Opening – apologies for the poor quality – shot with my phone, on the fly, during the event!

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