Jill Pilon at Gibsons Public Art Gallery

August 19, 2016

I took the day off this past Monday to do a day trip to Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast with artist friends, Mary Anne Tateishi and Vanessa Lam. We went specifically to see a solo show of work by Jill Pilon at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery, but also fit in a few other things. I love it when an art road trip comes together!

Jill’s work is beautiful and full of intriguing details that require closer observation. My favourite pieces were the ones with stripes and strong geometric lines, but I was also drawn into ones with a subtler colour palette and mark making details of scribbled writing partially revealed under layers of paint.

It’s an inspiring show, but it comes to an end this Sunday. If you happen to be on the Sunshine Coast this weekend drop into the gallery to see it.

Juxtapoz x Superflat Exhibition

August 14, 2016

The day after visiting the Seattle Art Fair last weekend I took Boris with me to see the Juxtapoz X Superflat show at Pivot Art + Culture. It was in the South Lake Union neighbourhood, which is an area of Seattle I hadn’t previously explored, and it seemed to be filled with cool art venues, and restaurants.

Elizabeth Higgins O’Connor

Kim Jung Gi

James Jean

I didn’t love this show but I badly wanted to see it because it included work by James Jean, one of my favourite artists. I’ve never seen his work in person before, only online, and it’s an important thing to do when you like someone’s work. It’s absolutely not the same seeing things on the internet. Now I want to see an entire show of his work, but I doubt that will ever happen in Vancouver.

Katsuya Terada

Making Polymer Clay Beads

August 12, 2016

I was recently inspired by people I follow on Instagram to try making polymer clay beads. I worked with the clay many years ago at a workshop taught by Laurie Mika at ArtFest, but the end project was to make a portable shadowbox shrine. I’d never considered making beads before, and now I want to make them all the time.

Theses are two of the necklaces I have made to date after three sessions of bead making. I hosted an evening with friends earlier this week, and the necklace below was put together from beads I made that night. I love playing with the colours, patterns, and shapes to make these jumbled strands of beads. I am so pleased to wear my own work around my neck.

I am inspired by these small making projects I’ve been working on over the summer. The necklaces along with my stitching project means I have lovely things to wear made by my own hand. That is the best part!

Inspiration: Louise Despont Draws Deep

August 11, 2016

My friend Snikitiki shared this wonderful video with me on Twitter yesterday, of artist Louise Despont in her studio. I love how she talks about her work because it reminds me of how I feel about my own.

Visit her website to see more work.

Scenes from the 2016 Seattle Art Fair

August 10, 2016

Boris and I did a short trip to Seattle over the weekend to visit friends, but I also timed it to coincide with the Seattle Art Fair. This was my first experience attending a large art fair like this, and it was AMAZING! There was so much to see that my brain almost overloaded in the first five minutes. I started out rushing through because I was SO EXCITED, but then calmed myself down and took it at a slower pace.

I did not take as many photos as I’d wanted because I didn’t trust my battery to hold out for the few hours I was going to wandering around. So this is a small selection of pieces of art I liked or found interesting. There is way more I wish I could have photographed to share.

Skylar Fein

Paul Villinski

Keun Young Park

Christian Maychak

Beth Cavener

(Did not get the artist for this one.)

Markus Linnenbrink

Phil Shaw

Kymia Nawabi

Christopher David White

Timothy Cummings

Elisheva Biernoff

Nancy Mintz

Kate MacDowell

Visiting the Seattle Art Fair was so inspiring but also humbling. It was a good reminder that I need to level up the quality and quantity of my work if I ever hope to be included in an event like that. I don’t feel my work is currently good enough, but I could be if I work harder.

Big Print Project in Chinatown

August 3, 2016

Among the many fun things Boris and I did on the weekend was to visit the Big Print Project happening in the courtyard of Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden. It’s an event to highlight printmaking on a large scale, with 4′ x 8′ woodblocks carved by professional artists, and the work printed by a steamroller. Yes, you read that right.

We dropped by on Sunday morning in time to see the inking and printing process for the woodblock carved by my friend, Connie Sabo. It was a group effort to get the entire thing properly saturated with ink. I shot the video below during the first plate inking.

A video posted by Paper artist (@rachael_ashe) on Jul 31, 2016 at 11:06am PDT

The handy dandy steamroller waiting to make big prints.

Laying down the first piece of fabric for printing. There were several layers of cloth and a piece of wood added for the roller to go over.

Pulling back the first piece of cloth printed with the steamroller. It looks terrific

It was a crowd pleasing event, and a spectacular introduction for people not familiar with printmaking.

There is an exhibit of the large prints later in the month at the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum in Chinatown, August 19th to 21st, 10am to 5:30pm.

Work In Progress: Re-Working an old paper cut piece

August 1, 2016

I think I initially created this piece of work two years ago, and I’ve never been completely satisfied with it. I made it with two separate cut layers, and it didn’t quite work. I decided it was time to take it apart and do something more to it. I drew a third concentric circle (that my compass was almost not large enough to handle) and started cutting it more. You can see the original version of this on Flickr, photographed with the layers flat.

I always photograph pieces as I go along because it helps me realize how quickly I can work. I pushed myself at the end of last week to make it to the half-way point with the third circle.

Today I pushed myself to finish off the remaining second half, and I managed to do it. Pictured here is the point I reached just before taking a lunch break. It feels good to have made this piece larger. I think it makes it stronger than the original layered version.

I took a short Hyperlapse video of me working on this towards the end. It’s another interesting way to record and reflect on my process and progress.

A video posted by Paper artist (@rachael_ashe) on Aug 1, 2016 at 4:47pm PDT

Vancouver Mural Festival

July 27, 2016

The other evening I took took Boris to see the murals in progress at Maker Labs. The entire place is getting painted by a large group of artists collaborating in pairs on individual murals over different sections of the building. The project is part of the Vancouver Mural Festival, which kicked off this summer and will oversee the creation of 35 + new murals around East Vancouver. I think there were a total of seven in progress at the time of our visit, and these are four of them.

Work in progress by Alison Woodward and Graeme McCormack.

Painted by Mandy Tsung and Russell Alton

Work in progress by Nomadic Alternatives.

(I need to find out the artists painting this one)

The Maker Labs project will be finished on Friday, so this weekend will be an excellent time to drop by to see them. Visit the Vancouver Mural Festival website for more details about their event.

Deconstructed Screen Printing

July 25, 2016

My friend Michelle Sirois Silver very generously hosted a small group of artists in her studio last week to do a quick workshop on deconstructed screen printing. It’s similar to regular screen printing but we made our screens by placing textured surfaces under the screen and then coating the screen until fully saturated with ink. The screens are left to dry and take on the texture of the surfaces underneath.

My composition of textures before the ink is applied.

The pot of ink before I applied it to the screen.

The screen after all the ink is fully loaded into the screen.

It took ages for the screen to dry, and in the meantime we worked on a freeform version of deconstructed screen printing, which I did not photograph. I used a rust coloured dye to create the screen and then printed it using a dark blue-grey onto fabric. Below is my final print with all the lovely textures.

I am thinking about what do with these pieces of cloth I have printed. They may end up as patches on clothing or I could use the for a future sashiko stitching project.

Check out the work of Michelle Sirois Silver here.

Sashiko Stitching and Embellishing Clothes

July 22, 2016

Summer is the time I break out the maker side projects, and often they are textile-related. Last year I made t-shirt yarn and braided rugs, and this year I’m improving my hand stitching. On the weekend I started with repairing a hole in a pair of Boris’ shorts using a piece of fabric and a straight stitch. I love how it turned out. The sugar skull fabric is the same one I used to make him a laptop case for Christmas.

Making the patch was a good warm up for getting back into Sashiko stitching, and it led me to finally get started on a project I’ve had in mind for months. I kept putting off starting it because I felt intimidated, but now I am OBSESSED!

I have this plain black skirt I bought more than fifteen years ago at a second-hand store in Halifax. I thought it would be interesting to embellish it with stitching. I am making up the design as I go along, working with various sized circles and red thread.

It’s going well so far, but I have a lot of work ahead of me because I want to embellish the entire bottom edge. I can hardly wait to finish and wear this! I have a feeling many more pieces of clothing are going to end up with decorative sashiko stitches.

Canvas to the Imagination

Rachael Ashe – Art | Craft | Life