Onward

Bear with me. I'm working  out how  the idea of branching  is going to play out in my new work. 

My last post included inspiration shots of what other artists  have done with the idea of branching.  Now it's time for me to start narrowing things down.  One of the ways I do that is to list all the possible ways to go and then begin to whittle them down to something I am interested in.  Then I go through my photos to see if there's anything there to prompt  me.  My own photos  or photos of family history make it personal.  I usually find I have been attracted to ideas before I label them.That's what happened with my wallpaper and object work in the Remnants series.

I started with these documentation photos  I received from a relative. They  that were taken of the homes in  Argentia, a community where my father's family lived.  They were resettled into neighbouring communities when a US Naval Base was scheduled for construction on the site of their town.  Newfoundland had three US bases in its history.

Apart from the aching sadness  I feel for all the  families, one of the things that hits me in the photographs are all the fences that direct the flow of foot traffic and keep people out or animals in.   I was surprised by how prominent fences were in a place that was described to me in very idyllic terms from the time I could walk and talk.   How sad  that all this marking of territory was for naught because they lost it all in the end , and received an embarrassingly small sum for their properties.

   

fences  divide in different directions

 One house , two branches of a family


one branch of a family often lived in close proximity to another

 a business branching out

branching fences to protect livestock

 

 the prominent use of tree branches for fencing and firewood (protection)

 How Argentia looked in my father's day.

 The main runway and side arteries branching from it that provided the new boundaries for this once fishing community..  My family lived around the pond that can be see at the upper left. 

I have no idea who the original photographer of these  photos was but I give  credit for capturing a dying community.

 

Perhaps all of this isn't really about branching at all , but, rather, one idea branching into another.  So it goes.

Re-presenting

My new work presented in my last post finds its beginnings in past explorations. In 2008 I completed a body of work titled Remnants. A remnant can be so many things: vestige, residue, trace, leftover, debris, mélange, scrap, refuse, detritus, relic remains, fragment. It all depends on your personal take. Here's mine from a recent proposal for an exhibition of Remnants:


In abandoned or soon to be refurbished homes, in trunks and old boxes, in debris hidden in grass rests layers of history waiting to be uncovered and interpreted. While the place and time might be specific, the information gathered reveals universal truths. The examination of what remains provides a sense of the past and direction for the future. These pieces of history help to define identity and understand place.


Using various art techniques, I explore the themes inherent in remnants left behind. I’ve placed my family history within the process but extend the exploration to old houses, some abandoned and some in the process of renovation. While one of the houses has a personal connection, the rest I adopted as I came across them in my summer wanderings. The houses continue to come to my attention and I continue to document them for future works.

The peeling walls are metaphors for the lives lived within the houses and are similar in many ways to my early years. The beauty of the wallpaper patterns is in direct opposition to the basic work filled lives led by many of the women in these homes. Seeing beauty perhaps made their environment more aesthetically pleasant. Many of these woman created work by hand that adorned their home made furniture and children. It was the inside life of women while many of the objects I painted to pair with the wallpapers represented the outside life of men at that time: building, fishing etc. There was a strict division of labour and definite male and female roles.

These works are about my memories as much as they are about the objects that I have chosen to revere in the work.

As Estes notes in Women Who Run with the Wolves many of our memories are rooted in the body itself and need the merest touch to resurface.

"The body remembers, the bones remember, the joints remember, even the little finger remembers. Memory is lodged in pictures and feelings in the cells themselves. Like a sponge filled with water, anywhere the flesh is pressed, wrung, even touched lightly, a memory may flow out in a stream."

I became interested in the concept of sensual memory while writing my first artist statement. As I struggled to understand why I needed to work the way I do, I realized that my strong tactile style had a direct connection to the crafts I created in my formative years in rural Newfoundland. My hands have to create layers of meaning through the manipulation of materials. Paint isn’t enough; I need direct contact with materials, tearing and cutting fragments, applying layers, building up, patterning, hiding and revealing. I am building a network of connections in the content and the creative process just as my ancestors did as they created objects of useful beauty, without waste, from materials at hand.

My process itself is based on remnants created by tearing and rearranging image transfers. My new work has moved beyond some of the ideas explored in Remnants. Teresa said in her response to my last post ... "The first though that popped into my head was "haunting memories" in that it seems like memory born from a dream-like state". Haunting memory is definitely part of it, but the memories are born through the process of creating and layering. They are stored memories released through touch.

Another find

I have a new find. My wallpaper detective instincts led me to the Monk's House in King's Cove, which is the community next to Duntara where I have my summer house. Those of you who follow my blog already know this is important news for my documentation of the wallpaper designs of old homes in Newfoundland.

I have always admired this old house since my trips to the area as a teenager. It was built in the mid- nineteenth century and was occupied much of the intervening time by the Monks family. It is best know for the large clock that is on the exterior built by Kenneth Monks who was a well known crafts person and watchmaker. The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador declared it a Registered Heritage Structure in April 1990.

Here are some of my favourite shots so far. I'll be going back as more work is done because I know the new owners. Lucky me.

Delicate and very purple with lovely circular motifs. I only have a few images with purple so this adds to my collection nicely.

The under workings that support the top layers of delicacy.

These designs are quite old. You can tell by the tight colour ranges and block printing effect.

My favourite green appears again. I need to research the time frame where this colour was popular. It is so much a part of my growing up.

Bold and more sophisticated than some of the other designs. Classic references abound.

Perfect in every way!

An interesting wiring approach that works well with the border.
...supported by a Geography lesson

My favourite one because it has everything.

...and help for the serious mother.

Moving along

I've finally begun a new series of work after several weeks of drawing and fun painting- the kind that I don't have any high aspirations for, the kind that I created before I wanted to really say something through my work. Fun painting usually brings me to the next stage because it clears my mind and allows room for new ideas to creep in. It worked for me again.

I recently photographed the layers of wallpaper on another old home that is being renovated near our summer place. This got me thinking again about wallpapers as holders of family memory as well as their historical and social significance which I explored in a previous series of work called Remnants. I've extended my explorations from that series to consider wallpaper as interior landscapes and combined remnants of them (in photo transfer) with exterior landscapes that have connections to my family history. I'm excited about the explorations and I'm still figuring out how to meld the two but I know I'm on to something that makes my bells chime!

Preserving history

I'm developing a name for myself as "the wallpaper lady" around the area where my summer house is. Someone knows someone who knows me and the news of another house being renovated brings me to a new doorstep. Sometimes I'm expected/invited and sometimes I have to knock and own up to my rather odd interest. I've gotten questioning stares, but I've always left the house with a part of its history in my camera.

Ever since 2006 I've been photographing the layers of history in torn wallpaper. In a way I feel like I am preserving the history of these houses which have been sold to people who are renovating them for summer homes. Even though my Remnants series formed a solo show last May, it seems my love affair has not ended with the creation of this body of work. This summer I was introduced to the King house in Dunfield, Trinity Bay. Here are some of what I like to think of as "natural compositions":

New work from old

I'm at it again... cutting up paintings that aren't working. This is the second mixed media work from my In the family line series that I've cut into smaller paintings and then reworked. A little background information on the series might help you view this work.

My family was one of 160 families forced to leave their home when an American base was built in Argentia, Newfoundland in the early 1940's. This community had a long history with the first census in 1687 showing 35 inhabitants. The main occupation was fishing and the community was large and close knit. Having to take your belongings and leave house and outbuildings behind to be bulldozed into the ground was a very traumatic ordeal for my family and I'm sure for everyone involved. To add insult to injury, they received approximately $ 3000 in compensation for their property. While they moved to a community, Jerseyside, only 20 minute drive from Argentia, it was another world to them. Many of the everyday objects painted in my Remnants series made that move from Argentia. Throughout my career, I've explored this event in a number of ways.

In this work, I've taken many liberties with composition in my effort to give the feeling of being disrupted, dislocated, and unsettled. One of the techniques I've used is shifting many of the images out to the edges (bad karma in composition ) and leaving open spaces in the middles. I guess this is a case of breaking the rules to achieve a specific feeling. I would appreciate any feedback you might like to give on this work.

All three are 8 x 8 inches on board.

I need to integrate the organic shapes above the house more. This was even more obvious when the work was photographed. Since I now photograph my work throughout the process of creation, I find it a very helpful way to stand back from my work to decide what's next. Another strategy I use to help with overall value considerations is to copy the photograph on my black and white laser printer.

While the upper left looks white, it is blue green and fairly integrated. For some reason- light reflection or my poor photography skills - it won't photograph that way.

I'm considering this one complete.

There are two others that are not working out that well. They may have to be abandoned.

Working on

Sometimes good ideas mutate into something unrecognizable. Today I will have to face the "what do I do now?' question. After cutting up two larger mixed media works (yes, two) into five small squares, I had to face the fact that I cropped the images a little too much. Yes, too much of a good thing. Yes, I got carried away. Yes, I should have taken a breather before cutting up the work. Yes, Yes, Yes. I know.

Today I have to add to some of the pieces to support the compositions. When you crop this tightly from a larger work, you end up with several strong pieces and others that are very weak because there's nothing left to anchor them. You might think that a smaller work would need less in it, but that is not what has happened. I've posted two that need a lot of help. I plan to spend much of today in the studio working on to success, hopefully.

I'm thinking about adding a faint photo transfer of my grandmother holding a baby over the lower right. It needs human presence.


There seems to be too much recognizable print in this. I like the bottom section. It is strong enough to support the image . Right now, I don't have one clue what else it needs. It just is not working.

Under the knife

After my post yesterday, I spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring options for my work , In the family line 1&2. I created several matts of different sizes and used the open window to move it around the work. When I found a composition I liked I used a watercolour pencil to outline it. When I was finished I could remove the matt and see the outlines on the work. I went through three different matt sizes. No new fangled technology for me! There were so many layers of medium and gel on the works, I was not concerned with cutting the canvas.

It was a successful activity and in the end I created 5( 7 x 7 inch squares) from each painting. I found that the problem with the work was too much information for one piece, and that became the saving grace of the smaller works because I can now hang them to reinforce the narrative aspect.

Right now I have to decide what is the best way to present them. Originally I thought about using cradled panels with 1.5 inch sides and adhering the canvas to them with heavy gel medium. Then I thought each should be framed in a floating gallery frame and hung side by side (I'm moving away from that idea). Another option would be to mount the canvases on birch veneer plywood or Masonite and hang them together in one frame with spaces between each one. There are so many options. Did I mention I have an in-house carpenter who can create any panel or frame I can dream up? Lucky me. Tomorrow I will post an image of the five works from each painting. Maybe I will know how to present them by then.

Out of the old

In the family line 1, (18 x24) mixed media on canvas

It's time to take a break from garden paintings. I have eleven works staring at me. I've decided 7 are totally finished and 4 are questionable in many ways. I need to look at what I've done up to this point with fresh eyes. I've turned them all into the wall and cast my eyes elsewhere for awhile.

I'm returning to work I started almost four years ago. Here is one of two mixed media works based on family history that have never worked. I keep moving them from one spot to another in my studio. In my mind they are the result of having too much to say and not censoring it for composition.

I've been fiddling with cropping in my photo program to see if I can find good compositions. Below are two options I've come up with. When I find ones I like, I will unwrap the canvas and cut it to make individual pieces and adhere them to gallery panels. It will be hard to take the knife to it.

Choices I'm considering (approx 8 x10 size)


Then there's square.. I like this choice because I could do three and have the more abstract one in the middle. I will cut them to the same size when the time comes.

Attachments

Mounted #1, #2, #3 , Butter Point, Jerseyside (2008) 10 x 10, wax casting, oil paint, encaustic on paper

Not everything you find in a meadow is a flower. These three works were created from objects I picked up from the detritus of what was once a family shed that sat in the middle of a lovely meadow overlooking the ocean. I wanted to honour these everyday objects that had all filled important roles before the wood they were attached to had fallen into disarray.

This work is part of a solo exhibition called Remnants held at The Leyton Gallery of Fine Art in May 2008.


Here are photos of the site.