Papier 16

Dedicated exclusively to the promotion of art on paper, Papier is one of the most important fairs of its kind in North America. The event is an important catalyst for the Canadian contemporary art market and constitutes a unique meeting ground for the greater public, art enthusiasts and professionals alike.

April 22 – 24, 2016
Hangar 16 – Quai de l’Horloge – Old Port of Montreal

Petit mais GRAND / Small but BOLD

Jazz Fest 1, 2, 3 and 4, Heather Dubreuil, collage

I am really pleased to be one of 50 regional artists participating in this show of small works. Each of us has produced four 6" x 6" canvases, all priced for gift-giving. (Mother's Day is coming up!) There will also be some small sculptural works available.

Organized by Autour de Nous, the show will be held in a 100-year-old former convent, now converted for use as a community and cultural centre. Please consider dropping by for the vernissage: you're invited!

Dates: April 21 to May 7
Vernissage: Thursday, April 21, 5 - 10 pm
Address: 418 avenue Saint-Charles, Vaudreuil-Dorion
Phone: 450-424-1757

Snyderman-Works Gallery, Philadelphia

As part of the recent SAQA conference, a small group visited the Snyderman-Works Gallery in Old Town Philadelphia, where we met the dynamic couple who began the enterprise some fifty years ago. Their specialty is fibre, glass, ceramics and jewellery.

Ruth and Rick Snyderman

Until April 16, Snyderman-Works is staging its tenth biennial textile show. Many of the works on display are by artists who have been represented by the gallery for decades.

Gerhardt Knodel's panels, each 144 x 112, polyester

Knodel's panels were what I noticed immediately on stepping into the space. There were five in all.

Anna Torma, Camouflage 2, 2013, 71 x 35
fabric collage and hand embroidery

Anna Torma of New Brunswick had three pieces mounted on a single wall. Torma won the lieutenant-governor's award for High Achievement in the Visual Arts, 2014.

Wendeanne Ke'aka Stitt, Niho Mano Quilt, 2012, 34 x 34,
Hawaiian Kapa cloth that is hand-dyed, machine-pieced and hand-quilted.

Stitt, a native of Hawaii, is concerned about the vanishing art of Kapa cloth and hopes to preserve and advance this traditional technique.

Hilary Steel, Cloth to Dance to : Freely, 1990, 90 x 45,
warp and weft Ikat, hand weaving, cotton and rayon

Hilary Steel has been represented by the Snyderman-Works for many years. Two of her woven tapestries were on display, the one from 1990 looking every bit as current as the one made this year.

Hilary Steel, Enter, (second textile in the Guardians Series)
2016, 87 x 42, hand-weaving, Shibori dyeing on cotton

A sampling of some other arresting pieces:

John Garrett, Circle Grid #8, 2016, 24 x 24 x 2,
steel wire, paint, rebar ties, wire grid and bed springs

Lia Cook, Intensity Su Data, 2013, 52 x 39,
woven cotton and rayon

Piper Shepard, Only Their Silhouettes, 2015, 8' x 8',
hand-cut muslin, gesso, graphite and aluminum armature

I'm so glad the organizers put together this opportunity for those attending the SAQA conference, and I would recommend Snyderman-Works to any art lover visiting Philadelphia.

Spotlight Auction at SAQA conference

The annual SAQA conference, held this year in Philadelphia, was filled with fun and inspiration. One of the highlights of the three days was the Spotlight silent auction and dinner. About 120 small art quilts were up for bidding, raising $11,000 for SAQA.

Maggie Vanderweit thought I was very clever to have put a "spotlight" effect in my donation piece. I was chagrined to tell her I had never actually noticed.

Window Shopping, St.-Paul-de-Vence, 8x6

Bidding for my contribution was very active, and I was thrilled when it was sold to Mirjam Aigner of Australia, who grew up in St. Paul-de-Vence, France. Thank you, Mirjam, for your generous contribution to SAQA. Wonderful to know that it will be treasured in its new home.

Mirjam and me

La Mémoire show at MUSO

Thanks to the persistent efforts of group member Mona Turner, the show La Mémoire de Hudson has found a new venue and a new potential audience. This collection of paintings celebrates the history of Hudson, and new paintings have been added for the occasion.

Please join us for the official opening on Sunday, April 10 at 1 pm.

Tranquility: my entry accepted!

Delighted to report that the entry I made for SAQA's upcoming show, "Tranquility", has been accepted.

Come Sit with Me, Patrick Caulfield, 30 x 30

It will be shown for the first time at the Houston International Quilt Festival, November 3 - 6, 2016 and then will travel for two years to other locales. I have never entered an international SAQA show before, so I am very pleased.

The companion piece I made, Come Sit with Me, Georges Braque, was entered into the complementary show, "Turmoil", but didn't make the cut. I can accept that the juror has her own vision of the show she wants to put together, and that sometimes a particular piece just isn't a good fit. She chose 24 works from the 220 qualified entries.

The juror for both shows, Kate Lydon, Director of Exhibitions at the Society for Contemporary Craft (SCC) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, writes: Artists throughout the ages have perceived the environment around them as both inspirations to act and as raw material to mold and remold. Selected for excellence in design, craftsmanship and use of material, the 50 artists featured in Tranquility and Turmoil are attempting to make sense of their physical, as well as social and cultural environments by creating art that shares narrative stories of memory, time, absence, location and representation.

Here is the list of those accepted to "Tranquility" and the titles of their work:

Frances Holliday Alford (Vermont, USA) - Flowers of the Vine
Linda Anderson (California, USA) - Morning Mist
Meghan Betts (Virginia, USA) - Infinite Possibility
Erika Carter (Washington, USA) - Ponderings IV
Maya Chaimovich (Israel) - A Window Into Spaces
Sandra Champion (Tasmania, Australia) - Buttongrass Creek: Winter Walk
Jette Clover (Belgium) - River View
Linda Colsh (Maryland, USA) - The Sentinel
Jennifer Day (New Mexico, USA) - Donald in Light
Donna Deaver (Idaho, USA) - Morning Walk
Heather Dubreuil (Quebec, Canada) - Come Sit with Me, Patrick Caulfield
Aileyn Renli Ecob (California, USA) - Succulents
Suzan Engler (Texas, USA) - Winter Silence
Sarah Entsminger (Virginia, USA) - Summer at the Waterfront
Sandy Gregg (Massachusetts,United States) - Entryway
Patricia Kennedy-Zafred (Pennsylvania, USA) - A Separate Reality
Judith Larzelere (Rhode Island, USA) - Translucency and Lavender
Michele Lea (Ohio, USA) - Tranquility the End
Lorna Morck (California, USA) - Trees: Contemplation
Wen Redmond (New Hampshire, USA) - Flown
Shoshi Rimer (Israel) - Blossom by the Lake 
Judith Roderick (New Mexico, USA) - Whooper Reflection
Gwyned Trefethen (Wisconsin, USA) - Adoration
Cynthia Wenslow (Illinois, USA) - April 22nd - Lake County Series
Tina Willams Brewer (Pennsylvania, USA) - Circle Back 
Kathy York (Texas, USA) - The Deep End

The Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden

Most visitors to the U.S. capitol, even art-lovers, miss seeing the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden. Sunken below ground level, it is overlooked by tourists agape at the city's major landmarks on the Mall.

What's to see there? Besides Rodin's Burghers of Calais? How about five Henry Moores?

Working Model for 'Three-Way Piece No. : Vertebrae', Henry Moore, 1968

Three-Piece Reclining Figure No. 2: Bridge Pop, Henry Moore, 1963

Draped Reclining Figure, Henry Moore, 1952-53

King and Queen, Henry Moore, 1952-53

Seated Woman, Henry Moore, 1956-57

The layout of the sculpture garden, with its trees and walls, allows the viewer to discover no more than two or three monuments at a time, a surprise around every corner.

A few of the many notable works:

Horse and Rider,  Marino Marini,  1952-53

Sphere No. 6, Arnaldo Pomodoro, 1963-64

Figure, Jacques Lipchitz, 1926-30

Above ground, beside the walkway to the Hirshhorn's entrance, was this very moving sculpture in bronze. It consists of five figures, three clustered together and two spaced well away from them.

Last Conversation Piece, Juan Muñoz, 1994-5

Last Conversation Piece, Juan Muñoz, 1994-5 (detail)

The absence of legs lends the figures an immobility or at least a paralytically slow speed of movement. There is a palpable sense of social exclusion, and ensuing alarm or even panic.

And finally, on a humourous note, this large piece in steel, titled Subcommittee: a carousel of rubber stamps, with their handles resembling the heads of the committee members.

Subcommittee, Tony Cragg, 1991

Petit mais GRAND

Well, that worked out well....

I have been invited to participate in a small format show, organized by the regional art group Autour de Nous. Forty to fifty artists will each produce four works measuring 6" x 6" that will be hung together in a 2 x 2 arrangement. A few 3-D works, no more than 8" tall, will be included. The show, titled Petit mais GRAND, aims to offer affordable, original art in a wide variety of media to the community.

No doubt the organizers were expecting me to submit works in fibre, but when I suggested these little collages, made as an assignment for my current on-line Jane Davies class, they thought that would be fine too. Tentative titles: Jazz Fest 1, Jazz Fest 2, etc. Suggestions welcome!

The show will be held at the Galérie Éphémère, 418 Avenue St.-Charles, Vaudreuil-Dorion, April 24 - May 7. A vernissage is planned for Thursday, April 21, from 6 - 10 pm.

It's just great when completing a class assignment actually helps you meet a deadline for an upcoming show and propels you forward on a path to finding a new direction for your work. Can't you just see these in a bigger format? Maybe in cloth?

Beyond the Colour Wheel: Lesson 3 continued

This most recent session with Jane Davies explored saturation: bright colours vs. muted colours vs. neutrals.

The final part of Lesson 3 was quite structured and a bit intimidating. We were asked to begin by painting in a background of neutral colours, with very little range of value: either all lights or all darks. I decided to work with six 6" x 6" squares of paper, taped to a board. (I know, I know.... What kind of colour class is this? Where's the colour?)

We were then to choose a limited palette of analogous colours, and work with these colours in muted form. There was to be little value contrast. I chose yellow-orange, orange and orange-red, dulled down by adding neutrals, green, blue, and/or white. We were to use these colours to paint in a loose cruciform structure.

Then we were to add a few collaged shapes, sticking with the same muted colours.

The next step was to add more collaged shapes, but now using the brightest versions of the colours.

Finally, we were to add a tiny accent of either a complementary colour (in this case turquoise or blue) or a dark. I had some printed deli papers on hand that I had prepared some time ago, stamped with black and white paint, and they proved to be just what I needed to add a bit of excitement. You can see the results below. 

This exercise is a way of creating depth in your design. In nature, objects in the distance lose their colour saturation, becoming greyed. They also lose their detail. This activity capitalizes on this phenomenon, with softly blended neutral colours in the background, more defined but dull colours in the middle ground, bright colours in the foreground, and high contrast added as a top layer. Ingenious! This approach also creates quiet areas of subtly blended neutrals set off by vibrant areas of saturation and high value contrast. Yum!

The final results, below, were scanned rather than photographed to give a better idea of their true colours.

I plan to mount these onto 6 x 6 canvases and hang them as a group of at least four.

Beyond the Colour Wheel: Lesson 3

The on-line class on colour theory with Jane Davies continues. This time, we are looking at reducing the saturation or brightness of colours. This can be done by mixing in white (to make a tint) or black (to make a shade) or grey (to make a tone.)

Here you can see how I began with a bright pure colour (Cadmium Red, Permanent Green Light or Pyrrole Orange) and reduced the saturation by mixing in increments of a neutral grey until I had a full range of tones. The special requirement of this exercise was to choose a grey of the same value as the original colour, so that all the colours have the same value. To check on whether the values are equivalent, I used photo software to "take out the colour", leaving nothing but value. That result is below. Notice how the eye can be tricked into thinking a bright colour is lighter than it really is.

Another approach to creating a desaturated colour is to mix it with a neutral colour other than grey. Here are my colour swatches for this second exercise:

Beautiful, subtle colours, aren't they? I love this mix of the bright and the earth tones. Of course, the values changed from left to right in this exercise, because I was lightening the original colour with a light neutral, going from Bright to Light.

Yet another approach to neutralizing bright colours is to mix them with their complements. In the range below, you can see what happened as I added increments of Permanent Light Green to Quinachridone Red. Slowly, the red becomes duller until it is a true neutral, neither red nor green. In the second row, you can see what results when white is added to the neutralized colours.

Next up, I began with the bright Pyrrole Orange and added tiny amounts of Phthalo Blue, its complement. Again, the result is a neutral grey, and you can see in the first four swatches of the second row just what happens when white is added to that neutral grey.

Finally, when tiny amounts of purple are added to yellow, the result is a warm neutral, and in the second row you can see what happens when white is added to these neutrals.

I can really appreciate the subtle, complicated beauty of these neutral and muted tones, and plan to use more of them in my work. To achieve them in hand-dyed cloth, I could 

•  add small amounts of grey, beige or tan dye to brightly-coloured dye, 
•  add tiny amounts of a complementary colour (green to red, for example),
•  overdye cloth that has been dyed a bright colour with a neutral or  complementary colour, OR
•  purchase dye ready-mixed to produce a more subtle colour.

Paint is so much easier to work with than dye. Maybe I should just paint the cloth!

Loving Vincent - a unique film

A fascinating process is underway in Gdansk, Poland, where one hundred artists are at work on oil paintings that will be made into a film about the life and death of Vincent Van Gogh. The paintings will be used at the rate of 12 per second to form a feature-length film, a first-ever initiative. Some of the footage is based on live action and other segments are simple animations of Van Gogh's own paintings.

To learn more about the project, click here.

New pavilion at MNBAQ

Opening to the public on June 24, 2016, the new 15,000-square-metre extension to the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec will showcase Quebec art from 1960 to the present day.

artist's rendering of new pavilion

One example will be Jean-Paul Riopelle's massive 40.2-metre-long work, Tribute to Rosa Luxembourg (1992), which will be featured in a passageway between the old and new pavilions.

By almost doubling the square footage of the museum, more room is created to showcase the museum's Inuit collection and its collections of decorative and design objects.

The new pavilion is sited very visibly along Quebec city's Grande Allée, and it has a 250-person auditorium for use by museum partners. Designed by the prestigious Rotterdam-based firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture, the extension will cost more than $100 million.