MAKING OTHERWISE / FOLK LORE AND OTHER PANICS

passion over reason  by Mark Clintberg and members of Winds and Waves guild , Fogo Island Newfoundland

I have chosen a quilt made with wrong side out fabrics to begin this post about Folk Lore and Other Panics, a 12-artist exhibition curated by Mireille Eagan that was up at The Rooms in St. John's Newfoundand until April 26 2015.

The quilt flips the text from Reason over Passion , the quilt that beloved Canadian artist Joyce Wieland made for prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau in 1968.  We learn from the wall label that artist Mark Clintberg designed this quilt because he is interested in women's intervention in politics and had ten similar quilts made by the Wind and Waves artisan group of Fogo Island Newfoundland.

Clintberg is one in a growing trend of young Canadian artists who are employing traditional craft, folk art, and commonplace materials to help us understand our panic-ridden contemporary world.

I like that the sixteen women's names from the Wind and Waves collective are listed on the wall label.  I like that the ten quilts in this edition are placed randomly on beds in the Fogo Island Inn.  I like that the story of the Wieland/Trudeau gift is held up for contemplation.  I like that artists as cool as Mark Clintberg are speaking the language of the quilt.

1970 stomped globe  by Kay Burns  2003 and ongoing

These interesting circular shapes are also from the Folk Lore and Other Panics exhibition.  The text on the wall label reveals that the artist, Kay Burns, impersonated Iris Taylor, the fictional founder of the Flat Earth Society and that these discs are the results of stomping on globes, an initiation act that new members do in order to express their common sense.

Like so much conceptual art, it helps to read about the intent of the artist, and then something goes bong in the mind and new insight (and laughing out loud) happens.

Two interesting and more comprehensive reviews of Folklore and other Panics are here and also here.

Road Trip  2012  by Janet Morton knitted wool man's outfit, video approximately  60 minutes

In Cambridge Ontario's Idea Exchange gallery, there is a second exhibition, Making Otherwise that features two videos about knitting.  In the first, Robert Kingsbury unravels an odd suit knitted by Janet Morton. Entitled Road Trip, the sixty minute video explores the dimension of time, and Morton connects ephemeral with repetitive, walking with thinking, and real time with embedded time for the viewer.

That suit took at least a month for Morton to knit but Kingsbury easily unravels it into a single ball in an hour as he walks through the outskirts of a town - past gas stations, alongside ditches, rhythmically lifting his legs to undo her labour,  not losing a step.  (Video was recorded by Nick Montgomery).

The second video, Shiny Heart, reminds us that while making things by hand is a slow and meditative quiet act for the maker, the result can be seen (and heard in this case) by others in mere minutes. Janet Morton's use of time based art forms such as music and video in combination with her slow textile production confounds us.  All the time that is spent making.  It's invisible.

 

The tuba that Colin Couch performs Bach's Goldberg variation #25 is muffled with knitted yarn over the 13 minutes that it takes to play it, beginning at the mouth piece and going around and around each and every tube large and small while he determinately makes his music.  It makes us think about all the time he spent learning and practicing the difficult piece.  It's invisible.

Janet Morton spent weeks covering the tuba with knitting, a complicated and fiddly thing to do and then in 13 minutes, it was undone.  The video of the undoing was shot by Morton's collaborator, Robert Kingsbury, and then played in reverse so that the instrument is magically covered up.  What is mind boggling is that the sound of the Bach variation is unaffected by the reverse video.  The hours spent by Andrew McPherson editing and fiddling with the video and sound looks effortless, but it's not.  It's invisible.
This Canadian Art review gives more information and a photo of the silent tuba.  Click  here.

The final artist I will mention is Sarah Maloney from Nova Scotia who uses embroidery and sculpture to address art history and women's  place in society.

A mother of three, the non toxic and portable art of embroidery allowed her to maintain her art practice (MFA Windsor) while raising the girls.   She also made the heavy oak frames for her large pieces herself as well as a fainting sofa with bronze tulips that is also part of the installation but not shown here.

The beauty of the curves and patterns are compelling.  There is intensity in this careful art.  The botanically correct and much enlarged couples of fertile tulips are bursting with life.

Making and otherwise: Craft and Material fluency in Contemporary Art includes six Canadian artists and was curated by Heather Anderson and organized by Carlton University Art Gallery.  It will be in Cambridge until June 27 2015.

sensual experience

"cherry blossoms" detail by Ana Galindo, linen, thread and cherry stems, 2015 

The exhibition Sensorial Objects continues until May 2 at the Craft Ontario gallery 990 Queen Street West, Toronto Ontario.

Here, cherry stems are couched with thread onto re-purposed linen by artist Ana Galindo, arranged without altering their beautiful naturally curved shape.  The viewer recalls how cherries taste, how the stems feel in our fingers.  We understand blossoms.

"cherry blossoms" from the series "of the everyday and its leftovers"  21 3/8 " x 64 1/8" x 2", linen, thread and cherry stems, 2015 by Ana Galindo

"In a world of materials, nothing is ever finished.  Everything may be something, but being something is always on the way to being something else.  We can call this re-cycling, but from a materials centered view it is simply life."  Tim Ingold

Accompanying the exhibition is a publication that besides double spreads of each of the artists' work, also contains an introduction to the exhibition by Craft Ontario Curator and director of programs Janna Heimstra, a curatorial statment by Kathleen Morris and Monica Bodirsky, and an essay entitled A Continuity by artist and educator Judith Leemann.  Leemann reminds us that the viewer's own life experience with familiar materials acts as the way to understand not only these artworks but also allows us to imagine further possibilities of the artworks and/or the materials and/or ourselves.

"jaryu" detail.  Chung-Im Kim  2012

For example, Chung-Im Kim (above) uses a familiar material in an unfamiliar way and Dorie Millerson (below) uses unfamiliar material in a familiar way.  Kim prints the felt, cuts it up, and through careful hand stitch, manipulates it into a kind of distorted animal hide while Millerson creates anew something recognizable and nostalgic that references un-locking, opening up, crossing thresholds.

Key  by Dorie Millerson.  Needle lace, cotton, wire  2" x 7.5" 2011

All of the work in the exhibit address the sense of touch.
History and possibility.
The work of the hand.
The aesthetic of time.

Return To the Next by Eva Ennist.  reed, concrete, hand made paper, recycled fiberglass.  72" x 27",  2014-15

Experiencing artwork made from materials and through our senses encourages deep reflection.

Return To the Next detail  Eva Ennist 2014-15

The ten artists in this exhibition are faculty at OCAD, Ontario College of Art and Design.
Their names are:  Monica Bodirsky, Eva Ennist, Ana Galindo, Lynne Heller, Chung-Im Kim, Rachel MacHenry, Dorie Millerson, Kathleen Morris, Meghan Price and Laurie Wassink.

In the language of landscape by Kathleen Morris.  56" x 24" x 1", wool and fleece, 2015

Each of these makers have manipulated things from the real world into new things that have never been seen before..  The act of making new objects from materials that already have a history and a language, places both maker and viewer on the same path.  One of the curators, Kathleen Morris, (whose work is shown above) states that "the act of making becomes an invitation for my body to reunite with the living landscape."

In the language of landscape  detail, Kathleen Morris, 2015

In another gallery just down the street (NO FOUNDATION 1082 1/2 Queen St W) was another exploration of the senses, David Ballantine's installation The Remembering of the Air.  Ballantine's three well crafted and beautiful inventions were made to be handled by those who entered the gallery. He states: "Through the reverent interaction of instruments and the body, my work investigates the sensuous within a growing digital and immaterial world." read more of his statement here.

David Ballantine with one of the instruments he made for his installation
The Remembering of the Air

The Catalogue

"Mended World is Judy Martin's third solo exhibition at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery.  In 2004, the Gallery worked with the artist to organize My Hand Sings Red and in 1991, I Will Remember You Until I Die.  Though she has lived on Manitoulin Island for the last twenty years, Judy was born in Fort Frances and lived a good part of her life in Kenora, so we embrace her as an artist from Northwestern Ontario.  Those who saw Judy's previous exhibiitons at the Gallery will be surprised at the developement of her work over the last nine years. On behalf of the Board of Directors and staff of the thunder Bay Art Gallery, I extend congratulations to her on the monumental achievement that is represented by this exhibition. "

Above text is from the foreword to the 24 page catalogue for the Mended World Exhibition written by Sharon Godwin, Director, Thunder Bay Art Gallery.

Now, with this show up, my degree finished, my dad finally living in Little Current, and my studio collapsed into a bedroom at home - I feel that I am on an edge of something new.

It feels open.   I don't know what will come next, but something will.

Time parcel

She buys the thread in bulk at the local dime store but the fabrics come from her stash.

Finally putting these fabrics to use - some having lain fallow for years - gives them a purpose to be sure, but it also represents a letting go, the slow elimination of a life's accumulation.

This diary is in this sense a purge.  From this release, a disquieting question arises about the nature of the undertaking.

What aspect is more significant, the slow unfurling of the daily stitchery, its limitless capacity materialized row upon row, panel after panel?

Or the gradual erosion of a life's potential always on the horizon, here reflected in that treasury of fabrics secreted away for future use?

Not To Know but To Go On presents itself as what remains, the beautiful detritus of life that can only be registered through the passage of time.

Time, her work emphasizes cannot be paused, and even the artist ceases to maintain control of it.

As days sprawl into weeks, as months pass, then years, the scale of the private and controlled endeavor of Not to Know But To Go On threatens to overtake the artist, spilling out of her studio, extending her environment. 

Barely containable, Martin's stitch diary rolls out as a chronograph of her life but also an indicator of the inevitability of the passage of time.

These long quilted panels materialize the past.

If an understanding of the past cannot be reached, it can still be spatialized. 

All text from Dr. Elizabeth Kalbfleisch's essay about the work in the Mended World Exhibition.
Images are of the figuring out how to display it, and about how to ship it (weight is nearly 40 lbs).
Thanks to my husband Ned for his support throughout, and for the beautiful custom wooden crate.

the c word

Luanne Martineau, Parasite Buttress 2005

Professor of craft history at the Nova Scotia School of Craft and Design, Sandra Alfoldy speaks about craft as a noun. She writes in Studio magazine:

"On a recent visit to the National Gallery of Canada I realized that the idea that it does not collect craft is a falsehood. Yannick Pouliot , Regency: Monomaniac, 2007

The gallery's exhibition It is What it is: Recent Acquisitions (Nov 5 2010 - April 10, 2011) was filled with materials and forms from the craft world, such as Luanne Martineau's felted and stitched works and Yannick Pouliot expert furniture making and upholstery.

The difference was that neither the didactic panels and exhibition catalog nor the curators and artists employed the term craft." Sandra Alfoldy

The curator of the exhibition, The C Word, currently up in Toronto's Doris McCarthy gallery thinks of the word craft as a verb. The artists chosen for this show are mostly painters. Elizabeth Bailey, Pink Bed, Warm 2011-2012

"If you work in one of the more traditional artmaking genres, you soon become aware that certain sectors of the art world hold the view that being too skillful in your use of materials, or taking the formal visual concerns of your art too seriously, is somewhat gauche.

To raise the “c” word is to run the risk of being seen as a mere technician, whose work must therefore be devoid of any deep feeling or thought." Richard Mongiat

What do you think?
(all images in this post are from the artists' web-sites)

these words from my studio wall

I've been doing a huge amount of reading, working on my dissertation proposal. To help figure things out, I've put words and phrases up on the wall but everything is still a haze.

ancient memory
the invisible
time is a material
nostalgia
every day life provides authenticity

Aristotle didn't talk about fear of mice. He went straight to the greatest universal fear, the fear of imminent death, like a passenger in a sinking ship.

uncanny
what lies beyond nature?
traditional technique embraced and transcended
nature's open space, yearning for light
silence

Notes re: Judy Chicago

I bought little notebooks for each of us at the nearest Shopper's Drug Mart before the lecture last Thursday. I like to scratch a few words to help me remember. Allyson Mitchell, the very intelligent, ambitious (and young) curator of "When Women Rule the World: Judy Chicago and Stitch" and its companion show "She will always be younger than us" moderated the panel. Allyson said: "Feminism is always as young as its youngest enthusiasts".

Jenni Sorkin spoke next and reminded us that Judy Chicago had worked in opposition to the current feminist themes of her time like performance and video, choosing instead monumental projects like 'the dinner party' and 'the birth project'. As well, Jenni raised the question of the marginalization of fibre art. With slides she showed that at the same time as the break through feminist collaboration 'Woman House' there was an exhibit of vibrant fibre art taking place nearly next door that has not been remembered in art history, not even feminist art history. Why?

Maura Reilly, respected New York curator and writer about women's art said that she was 'tear-jerked' when she saw the stitched pieces in the two exhibits at the textile museum. She said that she had never seen them together like this before and that the sheer amount of work as well as it's haptic quality affected her greatly.
(Maura Reilly is responsible for finally getting The Dinner Party a permanent home in the Brooklyn Museum in New york and is thus very familiar with Judy Chicago's work.)

When Judy Chicago finally rose to speak she answered Allyson's comment about the monumentality of her work by saying that she opposes ephemeral art by women because it just continues the process of erasure of women artists. Even worse, the women do it to themselves. She had found out that art institutions didn't want to exhibit women's work when she had so much trouble exhibiting 'the dinner party' and 'the birth project'.

Other Ways of Knowing

My thesis:

In all of the literature about modern aesthetics and art history, sight has been privileged over all the other senses. Artists practising in the last half of the 20th century challenged this with other ways of knowing.

Longing

It can be argued that humanity’s horrific descent during World War II left modernist artists of the 50's little choice but to work abstractly in their search for something elevating and spiritual. They used the traditional art media; oil paint on canvas or bronze.
Maybe it's our troubled times, but I think we've returned to this longing. Many artists working today are attempting to lift their audience to some mysterious other place. The difference is that most of them work without any “art” media at all.

Slow Art

I have finally finished the hand quilting on this 75" square velvet and cotton quilt. It has been in the works since December 2002 (about six years). It has seen me through a lot of life; a birth, a marriage, three deaths, career changes, and my nest emptying. I have not worked on it every day, there have been months when it lay abandoned.

I go back and forth about this passion of mine. It's not art I think. It doesn't speak a modern language. Many art quilts our there resemble abstract paintings. They steer clear of traditional patterns. This piece is based on simple first shapes, squares, diamonds, crosses. It calls out to be touched. It wants to wrap you up and keep you safe.


I can't stop making these bed-sized wall pieces. I have decided to call this piece, Slow Art.

"For four decades craft artists were misguided in trying to make painting and sculpture often forgetting or disparging what was useful and valuable and distinctive about crafts. Some of the distinctive qualities of craft that Janet Koplos identifies are attention to surface and its subtleties, scale that is keyed to the human body, and tangibility. Koplos suggests that craft's best route to art is to capitalise on its strength, its own character, doing the things that other art mediums can't do." Ilze Aviks in reference to Janet Koplos' 1992 essay "In Considering Crafts Criticsm"

art theories

There are many different art theories.
Ritual theory
Formalist theory
Imitation theory
Expression theory
Cognitive theory
Post-modern theory
Feminist theory

A theory is more than a definition. A theory is a framework. A theory helps things to make sense. Many modern artworks challenge us to figure out why, on any theory, they would count as art. Theories guide us in what we value, guide us in what we dislike. They inform our comprehension and introduce new generations to our culture.

Cynthia Freeland

Do you think there is such a thing as gendered technique?

Yes, some art techniques have become gendered in our society. Some examples would be sewing for women and the use of power tools for men. A woman artist can startle her viewer by using a 'male' technique or by using a feminine technique with male materials such as wire or steel.

When a artist uses sewing or housework as an art form she can either celebrate or question women's experience. A real communication quite often takes place through this kind of art because the viewer recognizes his or her own life experience within the art.

However, women who use sewing as an art form are likely to be marginalized. It's tough to infiltrate that modernist art system.

What does avant-garde mean?

Cutting edge?
In front of the rest?
Does 'avant-garde’ only refer to ‘modern’ art, developed in Paris early in the 20th century?

rhubarb pie deep thought

When I make a rhubarb pie, I follow a recipe. If it doesn't turn out either it's a bad recipe or I didn't follow the instructions.

With my art making there is no recipe. When my art doesn't turn out - then I have to either find a way to fix it or abandon it. It's no one else's fault. It's no one else's idea. Somehow, it's not even my own idea - it's more like my insides turned out.

Maybe this is the answer to that age-old riddle about art and craft.
With craft, you have a good idea how the finished product will look and do whatever it takes to achieve that. With art, you have no idea how it will look when you're done. It's a discovery.
Through art one touches the inner self. If we're lucky, we glimpse our inner soul.

"You find the shape you already are" Margaret Atwood