Arts on the Credit: Part 1

April 12 and 13 this year I am participating in Arts on the Credit, an art show and sale held in the lovely Waterside Inn in Port Credit, Mississauga. This promises to be a really good event... I'm blown away by some of the work I'm seeing posted from participating artists. There's a good variety of styles and mediums, from realism to abstract, oil paint to textile.  Added in to the mix is a few fine craft artisans, including jewellery, pottery and wood.

I know it's still a month away, but preparation is eating into my production time (I'm doing the stuff I tend to put off... price lists, tags, adding hardware and varnishing works that have yet to leave my studio...) so I have little new work to share. Instead I thought I'd share some work from some of the other great artists I will have the pleasure of exhibiting with.

Alison Syer: textile and acrylic painting

I know Alison from my local art group. Her little textile butterflies are totally captivating. Her attention to detail is amazing... they are accurate and displayed as if they were specimens in a Entomologist's collection. 

See more of her work here:
www.alisonsyer.com








Annette Siep: photographer

I also met Annette through my art group, and recently had the pleasure of taking a look through her portfolio. Her figurative work is imaginative and original, but I couldn't find an example online I could link to. This photo has been donated as a prize for the draw, so attendees will have a chance to win one of these prints.

You can see more of her work here:
www.aseipphotography.com





Lorraine Roy: textile artist

Lorraine's work came to my attention a couple years ago through a friend who also does large textile work. I'm pretty excited to see this stuff in real life... it looks so interesting in the photos.

There's a write up about her on the show's blog, if you are interested, and you can see more of her work on her website:
www.Lroytextileart.com











Justin Bayney

Justin's work seems to be popping up all over the place lately... or maybe it's just that now that I'm aware of it I notice it more. He's part of the Ontario Society of Artits show on through March. You can check out more on his website: www.justinblayney.com

I'll do a few more artists in upcoming weeks. Oh, and my April newsletter will have a coupon for a discount on any piece of mine purchased in April. If you want to get in on that, you can sign up HERE.

It's for the Birds...

This past month I had a short exchange with artist Anthony Greentree, on Twitter, who holds a monthly art challenge. February was "#linefebruary"... where you can draw anything in any medium, but can only use line. I commented that I thought this was a great idea, and next thing you know I'm on the list. I hadn't intended to participate, but whatever, I'll go with it. Now I haven't done line drawings in many years. Many, MANY years. I pulled out a sketchbook that I had bought and never used, sharpened up my pencil, and... ok, well, let's not shade that quite so much. I'll try ink.... ick. Was I ever out of practice. Page after page... awful. The last time I seriously drew in ink was when I spent the summer in Europe, in the late 80s (yes, I am that old). So I kept going, and about 20 sketches in I started to get the feel of it. All of my drawings were of the same subject... birds. 

Pen and ink sketch. I noticed when I posted this image that I've got the
year as '15. Getting a little ahead of myself, I'd say. 

I have a thing for birds. It's not new... even looking back over my sketchbooks from school I have doodles and drawings of birds sprinkled all through them. I think part of the appeal for me is that they are used as symbols throughout history, from Ancient Egypt to Native American mythology. They are mystical, and magical... and majestic. 

I don't really sketch (or at least I didn't until this month). I did it because it was something every teacher told me I should do, but I didn't really enjoy it all that much, so I stopped when my life got busy and it got too inconvenient to carry around a sketchbook that I rarely used (I had a baby and suddenly I had too many things to carry... the book just wasn't going in the bag). What I did do was get kids books from Goodwill recycle them. I prefer the board kind because they take a lot of abuse. I sand off the varnish, gesso them and repaint the pages. I have a pile of these little books, most of them thematic in some way. And yes, I have one devoted to birds. They're not that big... most of them only have about 10 pages, so I will do one spread when the mood strikes me and put it away until the mood strikes again... sometimes months later. Since my brain was focused on birds, I pulled out my books and did a couple new pages.

This was fun. Maybe I'll try to get back into the habit. And maybe I'll enjoy it this time.

The Artist Project, Toronto

I love going to art shows. I don't do it often enough... but when I do go I come home inspired, full of new ideas and itching to get back into my studio. This weekend I went down to Exhibition Place, in Toronto, and wandered through the Artist Project, taking in as much as I could.

How great is this texture? Achieved with layers of paint,
sandpaper and a nail. It's on a wood panel... somehow
I don't think canvas would stand up to this kind of abuse.

This is a fantastic show. As I went from booth to booth, talking to the artists and getting up close with the art, I took notes. There was much there for me to learn, and the artists were willing to share. I asked a lot of questions about technique, and came away with a lot of great ideas of things to experiment with. I love it when artists are willing to share how they achieved an effect. I know from experience that sometimes you try so many things that you can't always remember... working in series helps solidify things in your mind. It's such a hands on thing. I love talking with the artists at these shows... I've even made some friends in the process.

I love these colour combinations. Stephen Gillberry.

There were a lot of people wandering around at this show, and people were buying. Good to know. Every artist I talked to had sales. Maybe not huge sales, but something... enough to cover the cost of the booth at any rate. The show is hard to get into and it's expensive to be at, but it's also heavily promoted and advertised. It's nice to know that there is some interest.

This show is going on my list of shows to apply for. Even though the calibre of the art is somewhat intimidating, it would be good to know if I could get into a show like this. I don't think I'm there quite yet. My pieces aren't big enough, they don't have quite the same polish. But I'm close... maybe next year.....

This installation was awesome... I didn't write down the artist's name (I figured I had a program so I didn't have to, but then I couldn't figure it out because the spot wasn't really marked. If you know, please leave it in the comments). It is made out of old socks. There was an explanation about how she was sick of picking up other people's dirty socks, and this was her "gendered" statement..... I actually laughed out loud when I read it.  Very clever.

Alice Vander Vennen's fantastic textile work was captivating. Lots of copper wire and found object additions.

Project: Reclaimation

I've got a pile of half-finished canvases in my studio. One of my projects this year is to rework and finish them all. Acrylic is a wonderful medium... no matter how ugly something is, you can always paint over it. But rather than just painting over the whole thing with gesso and starting from scratch, I wanted to let what existed already show to some extent. I wanted to transform what I'd done, rather than erase it. To do this I used a combination of transparent and opaque paints, and instead of using brushes, I used tools that scrape... an old credit card, and ice scraper, and a squeegee.

These two canvases started off as musician paintings. One was a cellist whose head was at an odd angle... seriously, it looked like it had been chopped off and put back on not quite right. The other was a guitar player that looked off balance. But they were both done in shades of green, and the same size, so I figured that made them a pair, and I worked on them together.

Reclamation: I  
16x20 Acrylic on Canvas

Reclamation: II
16x20 Acrylic on Canvas

What I like about these pieces is the texture. There is so much paint on there, there are areas that feel vaguely organic. I'm enjoying this project, and its great for when I need to paint but don't want to touch something I'm half done and afraid of messing up (I feel this way from time to time... if something is going great, but I'm not quite in the right head-space for it, I will go on to something else rather than court disaster). And I got to make that pile of half-finished work just a little bit smaller. 

The World is Quiet Here....

I've finished part two of last weeks project. I'm happy with it. It feels a bit melancholy, which is fitting given what my life has held in the last month. I'm recently captivated by this blue... It's rich and transparent and SO brilliant. I've been playing with it on it's own, but it didn't get me the mood I wanted for these pieces, so I've dulled it down with earth tones, and left a little orange-yellow and crimson for warmth. I've included a photo of the two pieces side by side... I'm undecided if I'll put them up for sale as a set only. I have some skinny walls here where a long, thin piece of art would work wonderfully... surely I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'll live with them for a bit before I decide. Maybe by spring, at the Arts on the Credit show...

The World is Quiet Here: II
12x24" Acrylic on Canvas

The two paintings together as a set. They work together... I'm not sure
I really want them split. I'll have to decide before they leave the studio...

Enough wallowing... back to work.

I allowed myself a week to wallow. It was a pretty miserable week. But I know myself well enough to know that I can't let it go on much longer than that, for fear of sinking into some kind of black hole I can't manage to pull myself out of. It's happened before, and believe me, it is not a place I ever want to go again.

So... on Monday, after a miserable day at work, I made myself a cup of tea and headed into my studio, took 3 brand new canvases out of their wrappers and got myself back to work.

Works in progress.

I really didn't have a clue what I was going to do with these when I started. I had a vague idea of doing some kind of triptych. Once I got some paint on there the blanks filled in a little... I could see something starting. I flipped through my file of reference photos. Found what I was looking for. Yep, I could make that work.

I love it when things come together like that. It doesn't always work that way. Sometimes I have an idea before i start, sometimes I've done something at a small size that I want to enlarge, sometimes I never see anything, the canvases get ugly and they go in my reject pile until I can figure out what to do with them. It doesn't really matter though, as the mere act of pushing the paint around makes me feel so much better, it's like all the exhaustion drains from my body. I imagine everyone has something that makes them feel that way. I hope so anyway.

I managed to work every evening this week, and I've got one canvas finished and a second well under way. I'm still not sure about the third... I don't know if I can make it work with the other two or it needs to be something different. I will figure it out... but like all things, it just takes time.

The World is Quiet Here: 1
12x24" Acrylic on Canvas

A Sad Week

This has been a very difficult week for me. I was still reeling from the death of an extended family member, and then the sudden passing of a long-time co-worker and friend, when I lost my beloved "studio dog", Lucy, very suddenly. She was old and we knew our time together couldn't last forever, but she'd recently had knee surgery to fix a torn tendon and had gotten through it like a trooper. We thought she was as healthy as any 12-year old dog can be, but as it turned out, she had an issue with her heart that had gone undetected. I'll miss the old girl terribly... she was with me during every painting session, lying at the foot of my easel.

So far 2014 has been pretty awful. Sigh.

Lucy, in her favourite spot by the window.