Making meaningful art

Have you ever watched as you back up your IPad photos?  I just saw my life over the last four  years flash before my eyes.  My IPad 2 turns 4 in nine days.  It just won't hold its charge any more.  I see parallels with my own life especially with art production.  I am all intention and I quickly dwindle.

But back to the photos.  There were a lot of photos of my work and vacation pics.   As they flitted onto the computer I understood why there is so much blue in my recent work, and why water and sky have begun to dominate my imagery.  Many of the pics were of a Mediterranean cruise out of Venice and various shots from the south of England = sky and water.

Minack Gardens, Cornwall

View from Doc Martin's House, Port Issac, Cornwall

Grand Canal, Venice 

And of course my summer place is always about the scene in front of me, sky and water.


And from those experiences work springs forth.  Some make it to the Leyton Gallery and others are experiments....

 Above and Below 10 x 12 in. 2012 encaustic and paper on cradled panel

Lost fishing nets floating in the vast ocean under a moonlit sky

Experiment...  Water on sun lit pebbles in a shallow pond, encaustic monotype, later chopped into squares and rearranged into a grid

 Experiment (Gulch Duntara), encaustic, just to the left of my house looking down from the road into the water

On the bay, 2012 encaustic monotype applied to hardboard

This work is a direct response to sitting  in my rocking chair looking out the bay for hours over many days.  An artist friend now has it on his wall.  That makes me very happy.  Of course having his work on my wall makes me even happier.  

So my work is becoming more landscape oriented.  I didn't plan this; it just happened. 

Some artists are  very focused and develop a "look" that is recognizable. They strive to achieve this and many buyers like this predictability.   My work is not like that;  I am an intuitive responder to all that is around me.  One of my friends often points out  (not in a negative way) how different my work looks from year to year, but I admit, it makes me feel like a bit of an artistic fraud at times.

 While these land and sea pieces have a coherency, they are very different from my  Remnant series and my Reading a Garden work. But, when I stand back and consider this I realize that to the untrained eye it might appear that way, but woven into everything I do is my response to the passage of time, and no where is it more obvious than in nature.

How about you?  Is there a tight coherency in your art making or does the work evolve without your planned consent?

Compositions in time

I've titled my new assemblage series from reclaimed materials Compositions in time to describe their content, the media used, and my process in creating them.

They begin with beachcombing on the Bonavista Peninsula, NL or from materials collected by friends who have taken  an interest in my process.

The majority of wood and all my "attachments" are old.  They had a previous history that I can only guess at when I look at the information contained in stains, scratches, peeling paint and shapes.  The paint colours too help me understand what their previous life was because there is a history of favoured paint colours for houses and sheds in the communities surrounding my summer place.

These structures have been torn down, fallen down or blown out to sea.  Then I find them from my various sources, bring them to the workshop to dry, spray them against mould (antifungal spray) and bugs (solution of bleach and water). Sometimes I have them for a year or two before they speak to me.  I know that sounds hokey, but it's true.  Each work starts with one inspiration piece, and then I am off with my sorting and resorting of materials.  I'm continually going back to my stacks in this process. There is a rhythm to the process of creating, and to the structures that I develop for each piece.  I am not in the least musical, but I see these as  regulated compositions with variations.

The band saw, PL Premium adhesive, and my husband's workshop have become by best friends.

Composition in Time R#3 (2014) 20 x 44 in. Margaret Ryall (Private Collection)

The lovely purple boards came from Bonnie, a local  Duntara lady who provides me with such interesting bits and pieces of wood.  I was so excited when I saw my favourite colour, I couldn't wait to get it home.  Luckily I didn't have to wait too long for them to dry out because  July was a hot month for us.

The wallpaper remnants in this work came from a renovation in Dunfield, NL.  They were peeled off and reapplied to board using acrylic gel.  The part of an old iron headboard came from a friend as did the three roofing nails and heads.  Thanks Helen and Ken. Too many connections so....

 This piece rests proudly over the sofa in my summer house studio.  It is mine! I know! I can't keep them all. But so far I have claimed 4 that I can't part with.  My husband tilts his head,  looks around, and says nothing.

Installations with a difference

 How often do you go to a museum or gallery and feel lost because of the large scale of what you are looking at?   I just came across a great introduction to the work of Chiharu Shiota, a conceptual Japanese artist, written by Richard Rabel on his blog   The Modern Sybarite.  Shiota's  artist's work is very intriguing because of its smaller, more intimate scale and the way she uses everyday materials. 

Rabel  begins ...

The contemporary art installations of conceptual Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota (b. 1972) use found objects like beds, books, toys, suitcases, shoes and windows enveloped or suspended in a cobweb of strings.  It’s a fascinating concept: think about it – what’s your automatic interpretation when you see used objects through the prism of cobwebs? I think of abandonment, decay, and the dichotomy between life and death, past and present.  This is exactly her premise, and in addition she explores the memories of the people infused into these everyday objects.

 I felt an immediate attraction to the work of this artist because the themes explored and how she uses everyday materials.

  Take a look .

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.

An exhibition like no other

 We remember things for a variety of reasons and my exhibition at St. FX University Gallery in Antigonish, Nova Scotia  will go down in memory as my most unique one -not soon forgotten.  It went like this...

After settling in at the B & B, Don and I went to the gallery to reattach one of the wax castings that had broken free in shipping.  The work looked very comfortable in the setting because it was a relatively small space with lots of nooks to meander around.  Because of its intimate scale my work would look absolutely lonely in a spacious gallery.  I was impressed with the consideration given to the placement of the work.

 

 

I left feeling good and greatly anticipating the next evening.It was time to take in the sights of Antigonish and have a relaxing dinner.  The next morning all the chatter about town was of the upcoming snow storm. Now I'm a planner and I checked the weather  before leaving St. John's and packed accordingly.  My suede slip ons were not going to cut it, and we spent that morning shopping for boots!  By mid afternoon the writing was on the wall.

We tried to get a taxi rather than take our rental car with no snow tires.  Unfortunately we couldn't get one and started for the University. It was slow going and somewhat foolhardy on our part.   We didn't really have to worry about where we parked.  The lot was empty

This doesn't look too promising.

But everything was ready inside.

Bruce Campbell (Gallery Director) and Don are being encouraging.

I've decided that wine is the answer.

Our first guests show up. Thankfully students don't mind the weather and these two had lots of questions and comments about the work. I'm engaged.

After half an hour passed we had several more students who happened to be passing by and were encouraged to come in, take a look, and have a snack.  At this point I'm laughing and having a great time.  Perhaps it's the wine.

Our next visitor shows up.  This is hilarious. 

Not to be outdone, Santa's elves wanted in on the action.  Yes, all maritime elves are this spritely.

I would like to think that Don is admiring my work.

This doesn't look so promising.  I was right.  We spent about ten minutes getting out of the parking lot.  With the skidding that went down I'm surprised the tires were in one piece. Going at 20 km. an hour we breathed a sigh of relief as we neared the B & B, .... 

It was picture  perfect, but the driveway wasn't plowed.  I was elected to walk through the drifts in my new $25.00 boots to get some action. The innkeeper solve the problem quickly. 

Soon we were nestled in our Victorian room  and  reliving the night's events. The story doesn't end there.  After waiting at the airport in Halifax the next day for five hours, five minutes before loading the flight was cancelled because of St. John's weather.  Time to look for a hotel .

Do you have and exciting exhibition story?

On the road again

On Tuesday my husband and I fly into Halifax and rent a car for our journey to Antigonish, Nova Scotia where my Remnants exhibition is slated to open.  We are looking forward to our brief little holiday and seeing my work in a new temporary home.  I find every gallery different and the work exists in different ways in each space.  My trusty camera is packed so I should come back with a glimpse of the show.  Until Friday ... I'm away.

Part of the exhibition as it appeared at the Leyton Gallery in St. John's, NL in 2008.  ? concerning St. FX University Art Gallery show,  but stay tuned. Remnants keeps growing as I re-interpret the wallpapers and objects I've collected.

Redefined again

 Here's more work from my Redefined series which is a small subset of a larger body of work titled Remnants . If you've read previous posts you will know that I am reworking imagery that I felt didn't live up to my initial expectations. I am pleased with my new take on previous work. 

Untitled , (2010)16 x 16in.  mixed media on canvas

 Redefined - Barrel (2011) 16 x 16 in. mixed media on board

What did you notice when you compared my first and second attempt?

Redefined

My life is just a little too exciting these days.  My mother is recovering from knee replacement surgery; we just heralded the arrival of our third  granddaughter; and, I'm packing works for my solo exhibition in Nova Scotia.  All of these events prompted me to think about how our lives are constantly being redefined by our life experiences.  Nothing ever stays the same and sometimes I wish it just would because change is difficult to accommodate when you are busy.

The focus of my newer Remnants paintings that I'm sending to the exhibition explore how time affects our perceptions  of events/objects related to them,  and how the objects themselves are redefined as time passes.  I've showed some of these paintings before but I'm reworking the ideas and compositions in several of them and I think the new attempts are much better than the first ones.  That is probably because I have a better feel for what I'm doing/saying in the work.  So the painting content and compositions are also being redefined!

Untitled  ( 2010) 16 x 16 in. Mixed media ( image transfers, acrylic paint, paper and mediums )

on canvas 

While I loved this work when I created it in 2010, the more I look at it the less successful it appears.  Now I see it as  a little static and contrived. Yes,  I did a great job of combining interior landscapes (wallpapers from old houses) with exterior ones (a family dory like the ones used in my childhood), but I am forcing the idea of landscape. It's difficult to decide if this is about the object (dory) or if is it about the landscape itself. There's also the female/male connections from my growing up.

  Redefined - Dory (2011) 16 x 16 in. Mixed media ( image transfers, acrylic paint, paper and mediums ) on canvas

This is one of the  new paintings included in the exhibition.   It is much more abstracted and collisional than the first one.  I love the parts that are totally abstract and the combination of real objects in decay within a dual environment -a collision of "male and female".  As usual my photography is lacking because it does not capture the layers of information that well.

If you have thoughts on these  two pieces and where I'm headed in my new work,  I'd love to hear them.

Surfacing

I wish I could feel like I was surfacing, but instead I'm totally immersed in getting work packed up to send to Nova Scotia for a solo show at St. Francis Xavier University Art Gallery.  Remnants opens on November 23 and I plan to travel for the opening.  An hour and a half plane trip and then roughly a two hour drive will get me  to Antigonish which is a beautiful town.  I'm sure it will be exciting. Needless to say not very much new work is being created with all this sorting and packing happening.

This is the last of the pieces I created at my two day paint in several weeks ago.  It belongs to the Surfacing series presented in the last post. You'll see many similarities.

2011 (6x6 in. ) mixed media encaustic on board

Painting your way

 When I went to my summer house two weeks ago I was all set to paint my heart out, but I've done a lot of thinking about my new Remnants paintings but not much actual painting. Right now I have four finished.  Because I usually start my work with general ideas and a lot of intuition, I let the work lead me.  Somewhere around painting 4 or 5, I begin to paint myself into where I need to be.

Talking about my work with other artists has always been helpful to my development.  I am very lucky to be able to walk up the road to Catherine's house ....

 and request a critique (in the broadest sense). By the end of the day we were drinking tea and chatting about critique in general and my work in particular.

 Catherine is  Catherine Beaudette who spends her summers in Newfoundland and teaches at Ontario College of Art and Design  in Toronto.  I find  conversations about my work very  helpful if for no other reason than to confirm my understandings  at one point in time.  Talking about what you are trying to accomplish often brings you to new realizations. Understanding comes  as you search for words to express your struggle.

The paintings  are becoming less about objects in a distant  landscape as the first one was

 and more about the objects themselves.

I am zooming in more and more and using more abstract sections to reinforce the texture/feel of the objects.   I should have know that I would struggle with representing anything at a distance when I see everything in exquisite detail, so I am back to my objects and what they are telling me about their history/ marks of time.  I plan to manipulate scale even more drastically in my upcoming experimentation. I'm using my time back in town to get new image transfers ready.  Stay tuned.  Unfortunately there are no posts when I only have access to dial up internet.  My patience needs to be saved for more important things.

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.