Landon MacKenzie

Seen at the National Gallery of Canada, this layered painting by Landon MacKenzie.

Tracking Athabasca : Macke it to Thy Other Side (Land of Little Sticks)  1999
acrylic on linen, approximately 7 feet wide

Historical information from an early Hudson bay Company map is combined with colonial government records, doilies and drawings.

Also included are stories as told by the artist's friend,  Doris Whitehead, a woman of Cree, Chipewa and Scottish heritage.  The label on the wall says "Whitehead recounted her stories to the artist while indicating territorial lines in marker on MacKenzie's painting."

Then near by, there were these two small hardcover open notebooks, framed under glass.  The National Gallery explains that notebooks are often exhibited with this artist's paintings of Saskatchewan.

Framing notebooks under glass.

Layering doilies onto paintings.

Allowing another woman to mark up your painting.

....**.......**.........**.........**......**......**.....

how female

how wonderful

Landon MacKenzie teaches painting at Emily Carr University in Vancouver.  She won the Govenor General Award in 2017 for fine art.   Video of the artist here.

the iris lady

 

 The oil paintings in this post were done by my cousin Jane Colvin. 

 

 Jane used to have an iris farm in Illinois.

Jane and I grew up close to each other, our mothers were sisters.   Now we live far apart, but like to keep in touch.

We have the same grandmother.  Ethel Jane.  I wrote about one of Ethel Jane's oil paintings in 2008,  and in 2007 I wrote about the blue vase I have inherited that our grandmother painted as well as the basket quilt she made.  

mothers almost always mean well

"Don't use up words to get rid of tension....

 That tension should be in your sculpture."

                                                                                                                     Henry Moore

                                                                         

addition then subtraction then addition ...

Egg, Rochelle  Rubinstein, block printed, painted and carved wood panel

I respond to this carved wood panel by Rochelle Rubenstein.   It reminds me of Paterson Ewen's work with routered plywood, cosmic imagery.

The rugged material, uneasy horizontals, and jaggedy marks tip me into some unnameable emotion.

Her marks are made by taking away material.  She subtracts.  This is opposite to stitch.  Stitch adds.

I saw Rochelle Rubenstein's piece  in  Momento Mori , the exhibition curated by Gareth Bate for the World of Threads festival from works that were fibre inspired, not fibre based.

Cohobate, Nicole Collins, wax, pigment, jute twine on canvas, on board

World of Threads also introduced me to the layered work of Nicole Collins.

She begins with a layer or two of wax and paint, which are then partially removed by scraping or melting, only to be reapplied slightly differently.
The show is up until November 25 at the gallery in Sheridan college of Art and Design, Oakville, Ontario..

I was inspired to research these two Toronto artists online.  A humbling exercise...there is so much..

 Holy Well , Rochelle Rubenstein

Humores, Nicole Collins, encaustic on canvas

"painting is so difficult

life is so short"

Louise Bourgeois

life shapes

zigzagstripesfriendschocolateHapppy Easter

The art tour is over

I looked in the mirror and said to myself "You're fine."
water based resist with procion dye on paper

I am suddenly tired. I feel distanced from what used to be my normal life, and look forward to returning to it.

Even as it opens up, a rose already knows about dying down.


Luce Iragaray