I am teaching an altered book workshop in conjunction with Voices From Another Room at Hot Art Wet City in April. I get many requests for this workshop throughout the year, but this is the first one I’ve scheduled since sometime in 2012.
The class takes place on Sunday April 13th, 12:30pm to 4:30pm, at Hot Art Wet City gallery located at Main and 6th Avenue.
Student work in progress from previous classes.
The altered book workshop is an introduction on how to create sculpture from books, using techniques like folding, cutting, rolling, and working with three dimensional objects. The goal is to inspire participants, and guide each person through creating a finished piece of work by the end of class.
Voices From Another Room: Five Artists Explore Paper Hot Art Wet City gallery in Vancouver
This exhibition showcases paper as an artistic medium unto itself, and demonstrates its versatility beyond the role of a mere surface for other materials.
Rachael Ashe, Alison Woodward, Sarah Gee Miller, Connie Sabo, and Joseph Wu produce strikingly different styles of work but approach working intimately with paper through similar methods. Each of the five artists transforms their materials using one or more techniques of cutting, folding, twisting, painting but with a unique take on the end result. The work in this exhibition reveals the infinite possibilities of paper as alchemical material in the creation of intriguing pieces of fine art and craft.
Please join us for the opening reception on Thursday April 3rd, 7pm to 11pm. The show continues until Friday April 25th, 2014.
Voices From Another Room Hot Art Wet City Date: April 3rd to 25th Location: 2206 Main Street (at 6th Avenue)
Many years ago I worked as a photographer part-time at the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto. It was an amazing opportunity to be hands-on with a very special collection of objects, and be exposed to a huge variety of beautiful things from all over the world. I was part of their early efforts to document and digitize the permanent collection, which at the time was around 10,000 objects.
The experience really broadened my knowledge of what the word “textile” means, and inspired me to explore different media beyond photography. Of course a visit to the Textile Museum was a must do while I’m in Toronto, and I was thrilled to see a collection of kimonos and obis on display.
As you can see, I took many photos while I was there. The details of the kimonos are intricate and delicate. It’s an amazing display of wearable art.
There’s a mix of embroidery, shibori, and painted details on all of these beautiful things. It’s an amazing amount of work that goes into each piece.
It was a very inspiring visit, and I was glad to connect with a place that was such a privilege to work at when I lived in Toronto.
Coming up in April I will be on location at Opus Art Supplies Hastings Street location giving an in-store demo of paper cutting techniques. The demo is FREE but you must register by phone (604‑678‑5889) to reserve a spot as space is limited.
This is the first demo I’ve done since last September, and for the first time it’s happening on a week day. I hope you can join me.
Opus Artist Demo: Freeform Paper Cutting Techniques
Two hour in-store demo at the Hastings Street location of Opus Art Supplies. Date: Wednesday April 9th, 2014 Time: 12pm & 2pm Cost: Free Location: Opus Art Supplies, 100-207 West Hastings Street
Our next speaker at Hot Talks at Hot Art Wet City is Julien Thomas, a Social Artist and Facilitator based in Vancouver.
His recent initiatives include Park-a-Park, Vancouver’s first mobile park, and the Commercial Drive Parklet which was successfully funded through Kickstarter in late 2013. Julien pursues his passion by creating spaces that forge new connections and radically engage participants.
Confessions of an Urban Interventionist
We find ourselves in a concrete reality of streets, curbs, and sidewalks that guide our daily path. Despite this hard situation, we do have a choice: What if we decided to step off the curb and chart new directions? What actually compels us to walk the straight and narrow?
While in Toronto I’ve been venturing out to galleries every day this week, despite whatever terrible thing the weather throws our way. On Tuesday I wandered the hallways of 401 Richmond while a storm raged away outside, and yesterday I visited The Power Plant and Harbourfront Center. All are favourite places from my previous life in Toronto, so it was pleasing to see how they’ve evolved over the last ten years.
The highlight of yesterday was coming across multiple paper sculptures in Studious, a show in the Harbourfront Gallery featuring a variety of craft-based work.
Black Cloud is a massive installation of black paper and rubber or wire tubing (I’m not sure which) created by Amanda McCavour. It is magnificent, huge, and extremely inspiring to my paper-loving self. The photos don’t really do it justice, but I had to share it.
Across the gallery are three paper works by Lizz Aston. They are hand cut work, and made from dyed kozo paper. It’s hard to tell from the photos but these pieces are large and float a couple inches away from the wall. Again I found this work the exact thing that stimulates ideas in my own brain. It’s the kind of scale I hope to finally achieve in my own work this year.
I was really excited to pay a visit to the AGO last week as I haven’t been there in years, and long before the Gehry renovation. The building is so spectacular that it overshadowed the art a bit. The first thing Boris and I went to see was the Baroque Stair leading to the new wing, and we spent a long time looking at it from top to bottom.
These photos were taken with my iPhone so the quality isn’t great, but look at this amazing spiral staircase. It is beautiful from every angle.
For the past two days Boris and I have working away on my installation at the Gladstone Hotel for the exhibition, If Walls Could Talk. We had three days for install but we managed to get it done in two. It was a tonne of work, and at the beginning I truly had my doubts this piece would come together, but the completed installation looks even better than I’d hoped.
I made sure to document the process from the beginning, starting with Boris up a ladder weaving metal cable back and forth through the existing hooks in the twelve foot ceiling. The cable is the basic infrastructure from which all the wing clusters hang.
The clusters are made up of eight wings cut from card stock in various sizes and shapes. I was using the bottom of the ladder as a staging an assembling area to string the wire, and then cut and fit the wings together one cluster at a time.
Boris did all of the ladder work on my behalf, which I am extremely grateful for because I am afraid of heights and this was a twelve foot ceiling.
Once we get a rhythm going, I was assembling six to eight wing clusters at a time so we could hang a bunch in one go. It was a good way to work because it filled the space faster, and helped me figure out how much more we needed to complete the work.
I cut just over six hundred individual wings to use in the installation, and did not end up needing to include them all. I think the final tally of wings included in the piece is somewhere between four and five hundred. I wanted to make sure I had more than enough to work with because I wouldn’t be able to cut more once I arrived in Toronto. The wings were created using a Silhouette Cameo digital cutter, rather than done by hand. I am not that crazy.
Once the installation was completed we tweaked the lighting. The shadows projected on the wall behind it are pretty dramatic and incredible. It adds a beautiful sense of movement to the piece.
Here is a short video of Flight Path / Taking Flight. I think this may win as the largest piece of artwork I have made to date.
You can see Flight Path / Taking Flight as part of If Walls Could Talk at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. The show opens Thursday March 6th 2014, and my work will be up until March 16th.
Boris and I arrived in Toronto yesterday afternoon and I already feel like I’ve taken in plenty of interesting art. There is so much more street art here than in Vancouver, and it thrills me to see it wherever we go.
Last night I read about Crowded Kingdom, a show of work by a street artist who goes by the name of Anser. We dropped by to see the show at Hashtag Gallery this afternoon as we were out wandering the cold streets. I really loved the show, and wish one of the small pieces in my price range was still available to buy. Almost all of them were sold out.
Some of the faces are drawn with one continuous line, like the one pictured below. The line work is beautiful and intricate. I could probably stare it at for hours.
On another note, I’m curious to see how many other small storefront galleries like Hashtag are thriving and selling work on the streets of Toronto.
