Over the last three days, I spent most of my time finishing a large mixed media piece called Excessarama. It has been entered in the annual juried exhibition at the Latcham Gallery in Stouffville, Ontario. I will know by tonight if it has been accepted.
The piece is a commentary on one's experience when they shop at dollar stores. When we go into a dollar (or discount) store we feel like millionaires. We can afford anything. We can buy as much as we want. Looking at an organized shelf or wall in a dollar store with all the colours and textures of the shiny, unused items, they look like economical jewels. We think to ourselves, "That looks nice. I need one of those. How many should I get? I wonder if I can find...?" We are enticed to buy stuff. I am most enticed by cheap wax paper, low-grade eyeglasses and mittens that go missing through the winter season.
Aside from the obvious questions of: Is it recyclable? Is it of good quality? Do I really need another one of these? What person in a far away country put these tiny toy pieces together for very little pay? I would like to pose the question: What if ALL we had were dollar stores (and discount stores) to buy the products we want in our lives: clothes, food, toys, furniture, computers, cars, etc?
"There is a path between any two neurons in our brain, between any two companies in the world, between any two chemicals in our body. Nothing is excluded from this highly interconnected web of life."
— Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Physics Professor
In my piece I used watercolour, ink with a lino stamp I made, and paper. The paper was a gift from my printer on a day when it decided to spew a sheet at me with my image underneath thousands of stripes of colours. Nice effect, but how much ink was used?
As usual the Artist Trading Card event at the Latcham Gallery was busy and exciting as 16 "traders" buzzed around the room asking "Wanna trade with me?"
Here are the cards I traded that night. You can see my favourite three cards on my flickr site.
For my friend Laurel, of Cranberry Cloud, it was a family event. Her husband John participated again and her daughter Eleanor took part in her first ATC event. I traded with each of them and they have allowed me to post their creative cards here.
Laurel's card. Be sure to view all of Laurel's cards on her site!
Eleanor's card. She did cool linear portraits with a single colour added to each. This one is called "Lime".
John's cards require installation. They come flat and you assemble the three cards on the enclosed wire to create a three dimensional piece. His series is called "Caulderizations: 2010". (John, let me know if you have a site I can link to!) Update: if you have a facebook account you can view John's cards here.
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I had intended to make this post a list. With the list I would add a complimentary or, at least, an impressionable photograph from my personal collection. As I was scrolling through I came across some photos I took last July while on a trip with my family to Ottawa, Canada's capital city. The pictures are various views of a mural painted on the ceiling of a grand stairwell in the Canadian Museum of Civilization. I remember craning my neck for a long time and being awed by the work. Not having written the name of the piece or the artist at the time, today I searched "ceiling art" at the Museum of Civilization's website. I was thrilled to find an unexpected amount of information about the actual work, titled "Morning Star" by Alex Janvier.
The paragraphs state details about the "features of the painting reflecting aboriginal values and philosophies." The circles, the colours and the four quarters are among the many symbolic features of the painting. Regardless of the symbolism I was (and still am) mesmerized when I view my photos of this piece of art.
An added bonus was found at the bottom of the text: a link to his web site. I felt like how my children do on Easter morning when they hunt for chocolate eggs. I couldn't wait to find information about him and view the artwork on his site. Fed up with my oohing and aahing, my daughter pulled herself away from beside me to venture to her own inspirational whim.
We can feel great pleasure from viewing art (or photos, or people, or cinema, etc.). But sometimes something we view knocks us speechless. Alex Janvier's work did that to me. I thank him. What a gift.
Back to my idea of posting a list tonight. There will not be a list here in this post as I had planned. However, Alex Janvier is a new and very definate member of my top ten favourite visual artists.
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