Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all the joy and wonders of the holiday season!

The architectonic photos of Lauma Cenne

From the Oxford English Dictionary:

architectonic

Pronunciation: /ˌɑːkɪtɛkˈtɒnɪk/

adjective

• 1relating to architecture or architects.

• 2(of an artistic composition) having a clearly defined structure, especially one that is artistically pleasing:the painting’s architectonic harmony.

My friend Lauma Cenne, who is part of our text'art group, is a wonderful photographer. On a recent trip to Latvia she took many photos of the people and places of her parents' homeland, and she has generously offered to let me use some of them for my Cityscapes series. This is a first for me, as I have always relied on my own photography as a basis for my work. 

So much of the beauty of Lauma's photos comes from the textures of the old buildings: the crumbling brick, the peeling paint and the rusted metal. which I cannot replicate in fibre. But I am inspired by the interlocking forms of the buildings, the juxtaposition of old and new, the variety of shapes and the rhythm of the repeated elements.

I am excited to see what I can do with your images, Lauma!

Reasons to visit Toronto

The City, Robert Delauney

Until March 2, the Art Gallery of Ontario will host "The Great Upheaval: Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collection, 1910 - 1918". This period in European painting was a time of great energy and innovation. The show features over one hundred paintings and sculptures by Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, Kandinsky, Chagall and many more.

French River, Kim Dorland

Jelly Shelf, Mary Pratt

For all you fans of plein air painting, Kim Dorland shows his landscapes in the tradition of the Group of Seven at the McMichael Collection until January 5. Visitors will have the opportunity to see works by this young artist displayed side-by-side those painted by Jackson, MacDonald, Carmichael et al. The exhibit is titled, “You Are Here: Kim Dorland and the Return to Painting”.

From January 18 to April 27, the McMichael Collection will have a show devoted to the works of Canadian photorealist painter Mary Pratt. "She brings a sharply focused, contemporary lens to deceptively simple subject matter, demonstrating sophisticated skill rooted firmly in the history of painting."

It's always a pleasure to view the permanent collection at the McMichael, with its vast holdings of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. Nestled in a beautiful woodland north of Toronto, the McMichael was built to optimize its setting in an inspiring natural environment.

Word of the day: repoussoir

Boathouses #2

Here's what an on-line dictionary had to say about the term.

re·pous·soir

  [ruh-poo-swahr] 

noun Painting.
a figure or object in the extreme foreground: used as a contrast and to increase the illusion of depth.

View from the Academy

Quebec City: Old Town

Villaggio Toscano

This word was new to me, but looking through my files, I can see that I have often used this device in my own work.

Water Tower #4

Water Tower #4

SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) is assembling a 25th Anniversary Trunk Show, which will travel worldwide to promote the concept of quilts as art. Members are asked to donate a 10" x 7" piece, which will be put up for sale when the three-year tour ends. Water Tower #4 is my response to this call for entry.

The image is based on a photo I took while walking the High Line aerial park in New York. The photo is shown below.

I have updated my Artist Statement for a current show, which reads, in part:

"Heather’s cityscapes show the radiant transformation of an everyday exterior through the expressive potential of colour. She creates sensuous, aesthetic delight by a careful consideration of form and composition."

Yes, I love the interplay of neutrals in the urban landscape, but I also love to impose my own palette on that image, using hand-dyed cottons. These days, the vibrant colours seem to be my first choice.

Virtual exhibition

Water Tower #2

I am thrilled to have had my work included in this month's On Line Gallery exhibition on the SAQA website. Curator Linda Laird has put together fifteen images on the theme of "Looking Up, Looking Down".

She writes, "Do you ever get vertigo? I chose works, whether representational or abstract, whose upward or downward viewpoint gave me that wobbly feeling."

Some of the other artists are Alicia Merrett, whom I met at this summer's Festival of Quilts in the U.K., Cindy Grisdela, who purchased one of my SAQA auction pieces, and Leni Levinson Wiener, who coached me at the SAQA conference in Santa Fe. I am delighted to be in such excellent company!

Art Showcase at the Hudson Medi-Centre

Since the Hudson Medi-Centre opened at its new location, 465 Main Road in Hudson, its waiting room has been enlivened by the work of local artists. The show rotates every two months, and now it's my turn! I will be artist Number 16.

If you'd like to see five of my Cityscapes, they will be exhibited until January 18, during regular clinic hours. I will be followed by Susan Porter, known for her large, distinctive acrylic paintings of flowers, and later this spring, from mid-March to mid-May, Helena Scheffer's vibrant "colour explosions" in fibre.

If you'd like to have your work shown at the Medi-Centre, please contact me through my website.