Paper Cut Heart Translated to Wood

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I did my final laser cutting session of the Tool for Women residency at MakerLabs last Friday, and reproduced this lovely heart design as a laser cut from bamboo ply. The original paper cut is below so you can see how well they match. It was probably one of the easier ones for me to trace and create a vector file from in Illustrator, so it’s no surprise at how well it turned out as a laser cut piece.

28 days of hearts

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It’s hard to get a sense of scale from the photos but the original is around 4.5 inches by 3 inches, and the wood version is 13.5 inches by 9 inches. The heart is from the series 28 Days of Hearts I worked on earlier this year.

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Now that the residency is over, I’m trying to figure out how to move forward and continue creating laser cut pieces of work, which is something I’ve been intending to do for ages.

Translating Interdimentional Loops From Paper to Wood

In my latest session with the laser cutter at Maker Labs last week I used the time to cut a more complicated design. The piece is based on a drawing I did over the summer (as part of the daily drawings on circles) and spent a considerable amount of time carefully tracing it in illustrator. When I started I did not realize how much work it would take to clean it up and turn it in a vector file worthy of laser cutting. The original is below.

I cut the piece from bamboo ply leftover from previous laser cutting projects from a few years ago. It looks striking in the wood, but the longer I examine it, the more I want to go back and tweak a few things with the composition. The piece is 16 inches in diameter, while the original drawing is 3.5 inches in diameter. My aim is to have one fabricated in a much larger size eventually.

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Untitled

I have one final laser cutting session booked this Friday before the residency comes to an end, and I’m hoping to use it to try a cutting material I haven’t used before.

Testing Materials During The Tools for Women Residency at MakerLabs

I hit the ground running in early August, just a few days after I returned from our two month sabbatical I started a two month artist residency at MakerLabs. The Tools for Women residency is a new offering they started this year to encourage and foster more women to use the space. There are cohorts of four people from diverse backgrounds starting each month, with the first four weeks spent on classes, and the rest of the time is for exploring, experimenting, and developing skills.

My main focus has been on learning to use the laser cutter, and testing various materials. The first few photos are details of the scribbles I laser cut from Canson paper, just to see the results. It would be so nice to iterate an idea and not have to do it by hand every time.

Laser cutting experiments

Laser cutting experiments

My second session of materials testing was to cut a few of the same scribbles from coloured acrylic. The colour choices were limited because I was using whatever MakerLabs happened to have on hand in the store. I’m happy with these two pieces, and feel they work well in the colours and materials. I really want to make larger ones.

Laser cutting experiments

Laser cutting experiments

I like the layered shadow and colours the cast by the transparent fluorescent green scribble. It’s such a great affect.

Laser cutting experiments

I have a couple more weeks remaining of the residency, a few more sessions with the laser cutter scheduled, and more material tests to tackle.

Cut Weave Throw Print at Elissa Cristall Gallery

Join me on September 13th for opening night of the group exhibition, Cut Weave Throw Print, at Elissa Cristall Gallery.

The show features work by Rachael Ashe, Aurora Landin, Alwyn O’Brien, Amanda Wood and is curated by Lesley Finlayson. The Cut Weave Throw Print exhibition coincides with the Textile Society of America 16th bi-annual symposium to be held in Vancouver September 19-23, 2018 at the Sheraton Wall Centre.

“In a world of artifice easily facilitated by user friendly technology I curated this exhibition to present art in which the works elegantly manifest the artists’ discernment, understanding and knowledge of techniques which are critical to their practices and to the work coming into existence. The skills involved are physical, intellectual, psychological and emotional, combined with a multi-layered and highly specialized familiarity with a range of materials, hand tools and equipment developed over centuries. These are the quanta of the creative processes which allow each artist to explore the infinite possibilities of material and technique. The nature of infinite possibilities of materials in an artist’s hands and knowledge in their minds, drives artists to explore and test the nebulous boundaries of their practice. Sometimes the results are catastrophic, as forms collapse or materials disintegrate into chaos. Sometimes boundaries are crossed into another realm: weaving becomes sculptural, clay is woven into frozen fire, the staccato snips of scissors through paper become the construction of time, steel incising copper becomes drawing on paper. In all this work we see traces of decisions made and remade, of pentimento, of errors corrected, or not, of directions started, pushed or abandoned. Surrounding the work in the gallery we see shadows cast in light and space, including our own shadows as viewers. More subtly perhaps, within each piece we sense the shadow of the artist’s self, the human.” – Lesley Finlayson, Curator

 

Cut Weave Throw Print
Location: Elissa Cristall Gallery
Opening: September 13th 2018, 6pm to 8pm
Dates: September 13th to 29th
Address: 2239 Granville Street on the second floor, just south of 7th Avenue.

One Second a Day Daily Project

On top of the circle drawing project I had other goals I worked on every day while I was away. I used the Duolingo app to learn German, and have continued with this upon our return home. I also tried to capture small moments each day on video and collected them together with the 1 Second a Day app. My friend Shayla introduced me to this as she’s been doing it for years.

The app allows for two short clips each day at a maximum of 1.5 seconds each, so I did my best to make the most of those limitations. It wasn’t always easy to remember to take a short video each day, and there are a few situations I sadly missed.

May 29th to June 30th:

July 1st to August 2nd:

And there you go. A video summary of two months of travelling.

Inspiring Art in Berlin

It’s funny how I can be away from home for two months, which at the time felt like a long time, and then return home and feel like I never left at all. I don’t mean this in a bad way. It’s just that time passes differently when not following a schedule and don’t have specific obligations each day. It’s as if the two months expanded into three, and then time contracted now that I am back to regular life.

I had hoped to write more while we were in Berlin, but I wasn’t feeling enthusiastic about sitting down with my iPad to write a blog post. I saw lots of art while I was there, and shared a small portion of it on Instagram. The images included here are of some of my favourite shows and works of art. You’ll probably notice a bit of a theme.

 

Aiko Tezuka

 

Nelvin Aladag

 

Nelvin Aladag

 

Nelvin Aladag

 

Hello Collective

 

Hello Collective

 

Work at the Textile Art Fair

 

Work at the Textile Art Fair

 

Axel Lieber

 

Axel Lieber

 

Xiyadie

 

Xiyadie

 

Belinda Fox

 

Belinda Fox

 

Mariana Castillo Deball

 

Mariana Castillo Deball

 

Volker März

 

Volker März

 

Volker März

Many of the shows at small galleries I discovered through the Art Rabbit app. Thanks to my friend Vanessa for telling me about it.

Paper Talk Interview with Paper-Oh

A few days before I left town towards the end of May the team from Paper-Oh came by the studio to do an interview with me about my work. Watch the video below. Thank you to Wade, Andrea, and Eder for all their hard work on this.

Paper-Oh is a sketchbook brand local to Vancouver, and they produce beautifully designed books with high quality paper for all of your sketchbook needs. I’ve been using them myself for the past couple of years.

(Disclaimer: the post is NOT sponsored and the opinions shared are my own)

Mobile Studio: Daily Drawings in Four, Part 3

My series of daily drawings on 3.5 inch paper circles wrapped up as of yesterday when I finished the sixtieth one. The stack of them measures about 3/4 of an inch high, which is not a lot, but equals two months of sketchbook work capturing ideas.

See the previous sets here and here.

Set 9 – exploring variations of looping lines

Set 10 – exploring tessellated patterns inspired by my visit with Nadine Werner

Set 11 – revisiting an older idea of spirals with new variations

Set 12 – exploring an idea based on a textile pattern I came across here.

Set 13 – exploring line work inspired by tape art murals

Set 14 – exploring intense and intricate line work

Set 15 – exploring some of my favourite Japanese textile patterns

I’m a little bit sad to have run out of circles before the end of the trip but I knew that was going to happen. I punched an even number of circles to cover sixty days. I’m pretty tired of working so small and badly need to go home to the studio and make some larger work. Soooooon…..