This is a test of the WordPress for Android app. The main problem I see with this is I can’t type fast enough. I’m actually a pretty good typist on a regular keyboard, and can put my thoughts down as they come to me. For short posts though this may be fine. Phew I have to stop soon, right after I add a photo.
I went to the Whatcom museum and art gallery to see the work of a Washington state artist, Elizabeth Colborne (1885-1948) , who produced beautiful wood block prints and paintings. Photography isn’t allowed at the gallery but I did purchase the gallery guide which has some great reproductions of her work. It was an exceptionally interesting show for me because some of the images are from working proofs and really do a great job of showing her method. The show has been on since June but ends soon (Sept. 21, 2011), it certainly has inspired me to make some more prints.
OK I didn’t actually have lunch with Ken Lum, I’ve never met him but I’m pretty sure that if he is as interesting as his art it would be a good lunch. What I did do aside from eat at the cafeteria at the Vancouver art gallery was see the Ken Lum exhibit as well as “The Colour of My Dreams THE SURREALIST REVOLUTION IN ART” both are fantastic shows. and were well worth the trip. As is usual for me I carried a camera, which I would not have dreamed of using in the gallery. I surendering it at the front desk for safe keeping, while people with camera phones snuck around pretending to be ignorant of the rules. I saw you behind that Jim Campbell installation! Anyway here are some of the images I shot in colour with my new Nikon P7000.
I like art, I like making it and I looking at it and I like the way having other peoples original art makes me feel. Yesterday I bought a print from an artist who is having a show at local gallery the Fort Gallery. The artist Fiona Moes has a series of canvas’s on display but it was when I ducked into the back of the gallery that I saw the prints and knew that I had to buy one. It’s a funny thing because the idea she explored with collecting, is a theme I’m also examining with my series of paintings of cameras. Now I just need to figure out where it will go.
The Fraser Valley 2011 Biennale opening recieption is tonight. I’m excited to see all the different art that will be there and also honoured to have one of my paintings in the show.
The Great Hall
June 16 – October 9, 2011
32388 Veterans Way
Abbotsford, BC
I use disposable palettes, you know those waxy tear off sheets. I don’t lay out my paints in any consistent way and I placed my bird feeder where the cat to bird ratio would be the highest. OK now that I have those things off my chest maybe I should explain. I have a wooden palette that I made probably 20 years ago when I thought you needed to have one to be a painter but no longer use it. What I do use are the disposable ones and the main reason is that I work on more than one painting at a time and I often use different colours. I like that there is a temporary record of what I have mixed, when I come back to a painting I can mix some fresh paint right beside the old and get a good match. The main draw back in keeping them around is they don’t stack very well.
As for the bird feeder it’s one of those ones that attaches to the glass with suction cups so there is an invisible barrier, right about cats eye level.
I received my painting that will be part of the Fraser Valley Biennale at the Reach Gallery back from Abbotsford Art Gallery where they did an excellent job of framing. I really like the subtle highlights from the metal edges and the matt look of the black. Great work and thank you.
I took some pictures for a woodworker, Marcel Daigneault, that I recently met so that he could use them for a portfolio and maybe a website. After I was done I showed him some wood that I had but I really had no idea what it was. He took the wood and incorporated it into a box that he made for me. The wood I had forms the dark bands that circle the box. I’m thrilled with this object of art and it is now prominently displayed in our living room.
While photographs should be able to speak for themselves it doesn’t hurt to have an understanding of what the artist intended. Yes this is an image of a beaver lodge in an uncommon place, at the same time it is an image of the construction work going on on the other side of the river. All that shields the natural world here from subjugation is a thin band of water. There is little point in re iterating how we are encroaching on the habitat of animals we are long past that in most cases but the question should be now what do we do. Do we accept there disappearance from where we live or do we provide some territory for them so that we might retain a connection to them and the land, to our benefit as much as theirs. This year near my home two areas of wild grasses and flowers I photographed have been cleared for a new shopping mall and a townhouse development surely displacing whatever small mammals and birds lived there and the owls that preyed on them.
I have thousands of buttons that I want to use to create some paintings, that part is great. What isn’t great is that I am hindered by the lack of a subject. I’ve thought about how we have become so disconnected from our clothes and their manufacture. I was reminded of this while looking at an old photography of my grandmother darning a sock. I’ve considered also the history of textiles and it’s relationship to women, but am I right to tackle that? I do have one image in mind that I will likely do to help develop how I will use the buttons and the amount of effort required, which I suspect will be considerable.
