Marlene Creates: Connections

  Larch, Spruce, Fir, Birch, Hand,Blast Hole Pond Road (2007–) Marlene Creates

  black & white photographs, selenium-toned silver prints,.10½ x 15½ inches, 

collection: Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Provincial Art Bank.

 Marlene Creates  is a well known Canadian artist who has inspired me in many ways through her friendship and professional knowledge. We first met on the board of directors of Visual Artists Newfoundland and Labrador and later served for three years as Co Chairs of the organization.  

I remember when Marlene shared her initial thoughts about a new art  project - a boreal poetry garden.   At the time I was  exploring the meaning of gardens and the idea of a poetry garden was very appealing. I've admired  her dogged determination to create the Boreal Poetry Garden through physical labour and inspiration.  Now the project is in full swing   I've attended several of Marlene's initial  readings and I even get a mention in one of her poems. A recent article in Canadian Art gives a good overview of her recent work which has moved from the gallery into the landscape itself. Hope you enjoy how words and woods go together. 

On the road again

Travelling is a great source of inspiration for one's art practice and I've been lucky in that department. On my recent "art" trip with my friend and artist Carol Bajen-Gahm which consisted of a driving trip from New York back to Newfoundland, we discovered a new botanical garden - Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. It is spectacular given that it is in its infancy. There were so many highlights from my visit there, I don't know where to start. Oddly enough I'm not beginning with the plant life! More on that later.


One of the first things that caught my eye on the drive into the area was a sculpture by Wendy Klemperer, a Brooklyn artist. I noticed a number of her other works throughout the gardens. She works in recycled metal focusing on animals. There is no doubt that she understands the anatomy of the various animals she sculpts because they appear so lifelike given that they are only in armature.


Another favourite sculpture on the property was Glass Orb by Henry Richardson which spoke to me of the fragility of the world. The light hitting the glass and the resulting sparkle made it irresistible. The touch and it will break message was strong and clear. The aritist's intention for the work goes beyond my interpretation. The Spheroid Series, of which Orb is part, expresses " an inner spirit of humanity. In these simple shapes, there can be found a statement of mass without heaviness, through an escape of light." Specifically about Orb Richardson says, " Part of the purpose of the piece is to provide a way in which anyone who looks at is can have an experience that is personal to them. "

Check out some of the other sculptures in the gardens here.

Fun painting

I'm back in the city for a week. It will be good to get caught up on recent posts. Being restricted to only email on my Blackberry is a bit of a hardship for me this summer. The local community internet access site at the high school didn't get funded this year so we are without internet access. It's a loss for us.

I've had two weeks of fun painting and relaxation and the last two years of painting for my recent exhibition have faded away quickly. What is fun painting you ask? It's the painting you do to relax. It doesn't get a lot of heavy thought beforehand, it's not usually loaded down with meaning, it happens as you work, you take delight in it and you really don't care about much else except the process of creating. I continually return to poppies when I want to feel good when painting. I always do something fun for The Leyton Gallery Summer Show which starts next week. This summer is no different.

Garden Patterns #1, 16 x 16 in., acrylic, image transfers, paper and mediums on canvas

Garden Patterns # 2, 16 x 16 in. acrylic, image transfers, paper and mediums on canvas

I'm pressing my luck with the awkwardness of this composition but it gives the poppies a certain self consciousness that I like. I also worked to give them some individuality. Usually poppies look like they don't have a care in the world and are just hanging out in the wind.

These two works were inspired by the poppies in my friend Pauline's garden in Axemouth, Devon when we were there last summer. Alas, my photography of my work does not have the same vibrancy as the real thing.

A special view

It is difficult to roam around a garden and ignore benches. The artful gardener knows just where a bench is needed and why it should be placed there. There is a control element in garden design and benches in particular can be used to order a garden visitor's experiences.

Benches can be beautiful and functional at the same time. There's no limit to the materials used to create them; twigs, metal, wood, stone, tree stumps, ceramic and even more obscure materials make bench construction interesting and a bit of an art form.

Some benches are tucked away, waiting to be discovered, others sit in the open or in wild areas where you would never expect to see one. A garden bench calls out to me to sit and view my surroundings. It's a seated perspective and a long view. Because you take time and you are closer to the ground your observations are keener. Your pace is automatically slowed and your mind follows suit. In this freed state the world around you is ready for your approval. Contemplation and reflection are invited. I had plenty of opportunities for this type of viewing during my two week stay at Birr Castle Demesne. Because I sat and wrote on different benches every day, my journey through the gardens is tied to them.

This bench marks the beginning of my two week reflection .

Early morning, it is cool and quiet and there is dew on the grass. (Believe me not the date and time on the photo!) The gardens are not yet open to the public. I hear the distant hum of a machine and the wood pigeons are sending up their usual chorus. My travelling companions are fast asleep in The Bothy and the world is mine to explore.

Sun's out but it is still cool. We've been out travelling about the countryside but through it all I long for my reflection time.

I can still conjure up how I felt on these benches and now I've begun nine small 8 x 10 encaustic works for my show that will represent this section of my experiences "Reading a Garden". There's much more to come on this topic.

Pattern

From my earliest memory pattern has always attracted my attention. There is something safe and calming about pattern. The repetition draws you in and your eyes are ordered to follow the routes laid out by another party; it is a mindless activity when you give over to the rhythms created. Even the most complicated patterns provide this calmness for me if I allow myself time to see the components. I see pattern everywhere in nature and the created world. It creeps into aspects of my artwork and daily life. My daughter has admonished me for my attraction to pattern when choosing clothing; she is a neutral lover.

While we stayed with our friends, Pauline and Chris, in Devon this summer, I admired their wonderful garden which is terraced and works its way up a steep incline behind her house. It was an intricate world of twists and intersections when you looked up and through. My friends were astounded to see what images interested me. It connects right back to lying in the meadow as a child and seeing the blades of grass and stems of buttercups. I am attracted to the parts just as much as the whole. How do you see the world?

Continuum

Continuum (2009) 10 x 24 in.
mixed media ( photo transfer, acrylic mediums &paint) paper) on board

There is inspiration in the simplest things. How many times do people walk by aspects of nature intent on their own inner world and completely miss what is happening around them? At times I feel I have the opposite problem - a continuous bombardment of stimuli that must be filtered out or it becomes overwhelming to process. This rose shrub is a good example of my usual " nature experience". I was strolling along in the Millennium Garden, Birr Castle Demense, and was beckoned by both the buzzing of bees and a glorious smell. Drawing nearer, I could see that some rose blooms were still in tact serving as landing pads for bees busy playing out their role in nature. The thing that really interested me as I looked more carefully was the presence of every stage of blossom development in a rose. It was like the passage of time caught in action and I was there to experience it. Two days later and all the blooms would possibly have disappeared, an hour before the bees might have been busy with other concerns.

This was a difficult painting to execute. It lay around my studio for six months in various stages and configurations of elements. There were so many elements to include that I could not get the composition to work. I used a great deal more paper than in the other paintings in this series. The evidence of the original photo transfers is almost totally obscured by the inclusion of additional information from my memory. The work grew to be much more sense bound and less about the actual rose bush itself. With the addition of each element, I felt I was building my own understanding of the the passage of time.

Screen

Screen (2009) 10 x 24 in.
mixed media (photo transfers, acrylic medium and paint, paper) on board

Layering is a prominent aspect of every garden I have ever visited. This design concept is used to move a viewer/visitor visually through a space, to look beyond what is the closest and most obvious feature. Sometimes these invitations are "man made" but more often than not nature is the designer.

This work does not represent one particular place; it is a combination of three different views in Birr Castle Demesne. I thought I would try my hand at garden design.

A garden walk

Do you ever see a pathway, driveway or entrance and feel compelled to find out what lies further along? By answering this call I came upon a lovely garden just outside Birr Castle Demesne in Birr, Ireland. For days I passed this beautiful, inviting, blue-green door on my way into Birr town for groceries. While tempted to open it and peek in, I resisted. Another day I walked down a different street and saw a long driveway that led to a B &B. It beckoned me but my husband wasn't convinced he belonged there. I convinced him. Come along with me on a garden tour of the then Walcot residence grounds which might now have new owners because the property was for sale.

Wouldn't you want to know what was behind this door?

This is the entrance that convinced me to explore inside.

Just up the driveway was an inviting spot to take a rest. I wanted lemonade but none appeared.

In front of the house was a large gravel parking area and off it were a number of inviting archways that led to different areas. This one went to a private residence so I controlled myself.

Let's take this one and see what happens.

Ohhh, I just love the circles and the gentle curve.

If you're tired, take a little rest.

There's a gate just beyond the hanging branch.

We've taken a trip along the boundary of the property and landed back in the parking area.

Another path to follow...

I noticed that there were a number of paths, both long and short, that ended up where they began. There was a lot of walking involved in exploring a small area. I guess that's the ultimate in garden design.

This is another sitting areas near the house. I finally got to see what was behind the blue-green door.

It's just as inviting inside as out.

Headed back down the driveway I noticed another entrance I missed on the way up. Shall we venture in?

It's a small enclosed courtyard with lots of interesting areas.



Don't forget to look up too.

There now! Wasn't that a lovely walk?

New work - collage

Postcard collage Garden #1 (2009) paper, acrylic on board, 4 x 6 in.

When I am in a garden I often think about the "goings on" I cannot see, the new growth, the minerals in the soil helping out, the roots, and of course the constant decay. I am trying to capture this process abstractly. This is my first organic attemept.

When to call it quits

Summer Baromenter, 2008, (16 x 16) mixed media on canvas

Today I went looking for an image and found this misplaced documentation of a painting I sold last year. This piece had a long gestation period. I could never seem to get it just right and it kept me company in my studio for three years. One day last spring, it just happened! Soon after it was chosen for a juried fine art/craft show and sold to an American tourist. I like the thought that someone else can share the joy of my early years.

In this piece I wanted to capture both my memory of the physical aspects of the landscape where I grew up, and my feelings for the meadow where we played most days of summer vacations until I was a teenager. It was a time of freedom, where we were allowed to run rampant through tall grass, over rocks, along the water's edge and through the woods that bordered our property.

I find that when I create work that is intensely personal to me and I want to get it perfect, it hampers my free flow of ideas. Nothing is good enough, and I often refuse to follow up on ideas, throwing them on the reject pile before they have had time to grow. As a result, I either have a piece that ends up in my recycle pile or I have a piece staring at me for long blocks of time. The challenge is knowing when to call it quits. I'm glad I waited for this one.

Transience and mortality

Recurrent themes are evident in the reading I've done about gardens and how gardens are portrayed in art . A review of my observation journal kept during my two week stay in the gardens at Birr Castle reveal similar themes which in turn are evident in the work I'm creating.

Transience and mortality
Everywhere you look in a garden there is evidence of the transience of life. The cyclical nature of plants, the decay evident in plant matter below trees and garden beds etc. mark the passing of time.





It's impossible to spend time in a garden and not think about your own mortality. There are also objects in gardens that reference mortality, e.g., sundials, funerary urns, fragments of antique statuary, doors.







Certain areas of gardens that are more functional and not for visitor eyes, or ones that have evidence of neglect , e.g. collapsing fences, decaying buildings, rampant weeds, etc. also reference mortality.

.... and the setting sun.