I have been off-line for some time. Daily updates will now be de rigueur. This is the first. I wont post a new blog entry each day -so it might not be obvious that I am working here. However, editing the website and making sure it is connecting to folks as I think it hasn’t been working well will be going on, new items might appear in the shop and other important changes will occur so stay with me folks. Why do this? To easy my mind.
The Parallel Art Show of the Salt Spring National Art Prize
Yes, it is tonight, finally we are here. It’s the ‘C’ Word… CONGRATULATIONS - to all involved in making the optimistic decisions along the way in the past 2 years… to go ahead and create the avenues for the Salt Spring National Art Prize to happen and my sincerest thanks to all the donors, sponsors, volunteers, advisors, artists and associated support and very clever people who have worked on this extremely creative process.
Thanks to the jury for accepting my piece Irisation of Laughter into the Parallel Art Show.
Photos will follow after the, opening night.
Now I want to welcome you to come and see the show… and boy is there a treat involved at the Salt Spring National Art Prize Finalists’ Exhibition and at the Parallel Art Show. For opening times/location see end of post.
If you can’t make it to the live shows, please visit here.
SSNAP Finalist Exhibition
Saturday, September 25 - Monday October 25 I Open Daily 10am - 5pm
Mahon Hall
166 Lower Ganges Rd, Salt Spring Island, BC V8K 2T2
Parallel Art Show (PAS)
Saturday, September 25 To October 17 I Open Daily 10am - 4pm
ArtSpring Gallery
100 Jackson Ave, Salt Spring Island, BC V8K 2V8
Salt Spring National Art Prize Parallel Art Show - Instagram
Hey, I am on the Parallel Art Show’s instagram account. They changed the image to black and white which I rather like…. go there if you want to share Parallel’s Insta. @parallelartshow and see more artist and their works. Still no big reveal from me though… we are on countdown to the show. And if you want to volunteer to sit the show or help in any way do get in touch with me via instagram or here.
Here They Are
I don’t know if I ever circulated this image…. I doubt it because I don’t think I had one up to now.
I hope it makes you laugh rather than giving you nightmares.
I worked the top third using hand and machine embroidery, beads and metal piercing! And a touch of fabric marker (green and red).
The middle portion is by Loretta Golby (pen and ink with Fymo) and the bottom by Bob Leatherbarrow, glass.
It was up for auction as part of the Exquisite Corpse fundraiser for the Salt Spring National Art Prize, and sold to a collector.
It was a wonderful thing to be part of and a lot of fun too.
If you don’t know what Exquisite Corpse is, do Google it, but you might know it better as the game “Consequences” though it was originally an art process developed by the Surrealists.
The Intellectual Dancer Goes Naturale 1’ x 3’ mixed media on cradleboard.
Karin Millson, Loretta Golby, Bob Leatherbarrow (top to bottom)
Irisation of Laughter - Ships to Photographer
Making an art piece doesn’t finish with the last stitch - this piece has already travelled the length of Salt Spring to be photographed by Seth Berkowitz.
Still giving nothing away - the piece offered up an opportunity for my own photography.
Now to tackle an artist’s statement
Irisation of Laughter
Is Finished
This is some of the equipment that I tidied up from my desk after I had completed the assembly of Irisation of Laughter. Just a flavour of what I had used to put this piece together over the last year and a half.
Catch Up
Recent works:
Sunset Above the Staircase : happy accident, shadow formation
Automata Organics : A print-based art piece from 2015, now worked up with beads and sequins and on show at Salt Spring Gallery as part of a show “Retrospective”
A watercolour sketch - playing with transparency of paint.
On our Anniversary - Dance with Me.
After 4 Years of Storage….now they emerge.
Thanks to Susan K. For her generous donation of an amazing assortment of thread samples from Henry’s Attic. Did I ever think I would be working with threads from 5 Mercury Avenue, Monroe, New York? No, Never.
Turns out these are just what I need right now. They are making me so happy.
They become these:-
Graduation Achieved.
Moving to White on White.
I wouldn’t be posting right away but I want to check up on the Squarespace to Facebook link that I have spent hours trying to establish. My own fault of course. Working on White on White was interrupted.
Test for facebook 4
testing testing testing testing……..
Back to The Nuclei - Design Decision - I need white....
After a short interlude with “No” I am now back to working on these nuclei.
A design decision - has led to me working in white for a while. I know… there is colour there too, but soon there will be white-only ones. Which begs the question…. one I studies in great depth with my tutor Sian Martin - What is white? How many whites are there actually - I am working in thread but we could equally well be talking about ink, paint, fabric, grout….!
"No"
The She Said exhibition for 2020 has been postponed to March 2021. so I have decided to show a tantalizing view of the piece “No”. It is 8’ tall, and 8” diameter. It is a lightweight piece of art carried on a silk organza ground, with 1000 Nos suspended on the silk organza pages. the art is based on two pieces of poetry/lyrics. And I will say more about this work in March, 2021. For now, here is a detail from the piece.
PHOTO CREDIT : DANIEL MILLSON
Quick one out of the box
I have been asked to join the She Said show at ArtSpring in November. Below are some of the components for the artwork “No”.
I’m happy that my interest in printing has come into play with this work.
Multiple tissue paper circles, cut out using sewing machine perforation method, Sharpie Ink used to bleed around and between edges when circles were still stacked..
The ‘NO’ Stamp after printing 100s of ‘NO’s. It is crumbling away.. but lasted for the full 1000
Trash Show now online
I thought I would let you know about the Printers’ Show TRASH PRINTS. I meet with these folks once a month - sometimes from a distance - and we worked on a very unusual project recently. I hope you enjoy reading online about the curious origins of this show and seeing the varied outcomes.The Trash Can shown on the Poster will be loved by all my English friends, and I think it is a great work by Cathy McCluskey.
Nine of our group have found their medium or theme in trash and the results are here! Check out the virtual show at www.ssipaintersguild.ca/trash-prints/
Please let your family and friends know about this show! They won’t want to miss it.
We hope there will be an article in the Driftwood next week seeking our mystery person who sent the advertising plates to the dump. Let’s hope he/she comes forward!
The show is up for the month of September. Don’t miss it!
For more info, please contact johoskins@telus.net or nlayard@shaw.ca.
(Virtual) Printmakers Day
Lovely to be working with the great Printmakers of Saltspring Island’s Painters’ Guild.
Today (actually weeks ago, but not uploaded till today!) I freed my mind and found some continuity with work done at the last printing event I attended.
Works based on CoVid 19.
International Printmakers’ Day - May 2nd
I am just getting ready to start working my studio - during a day of sharing printmaking activities with others on our island (Saltspring) to celebrate International Printmakers’ Day. We work in our own studios or kitchens, sharing (by email )what we are doing and have accomplished periodically during the day. At the end of the day the images and stories are collated and we acknowledge all the wonderful results of this collaboration.
Before I came down to my workplace I unpacked my groceries that have been sitting for 72 hours in their brown paper bags.
That changed my plans for my participation in the International Printmakers’ Day today.
I don’t have much to go on, all I know is that I am printing on those bags! In England we don’t have (or have a history of) using brown bags at the grocery store. It was something we saw in movie or TV shows like Mr Ed. Or The Fonz (Is that the right spelling?). - see the web link for Bulldog Paper Bags below - 1965)
Now I find myself not only using them, but using them when I don’t want to during this time of socially distant shopping
It seems like a good base for work today.
Impressions 5 is Now Online
The Printmakers of Saltspring Island’s Painters’ Guild is now showing their annual print collection online. We were due to show at the Library on Saltspring Island April 8 - 15, but well, you know how it is right now.
Please go to the the site HERE.
Enjoy the wonderful collection, the best ever. I am honoured to be showing along such talent and hope some of you will feel able to support the artists, many of whom will be missing their income from visitors to the island this Easter holiday.
Thanks are due to the organizing committee for arranging this show in the first place and then especially to Nora Layard and Johanna Hoskins for their amazing, diligent and time consuming work to get the show up on the web.
Impressions-5
Sea of Dreams : Karin Millson, 2020
The Printmakers of the Saltspring Island Painters’ Guild were due to exhibit on Saltspring Island this month, with their annual library show. The team at Printmakers should be congratulated for their work on this show. Not only for all the work in encouraging us to participate, but then the hard work of prepping for the show. Then CoVid-19! Nonetheless the optimistic group has put their best foot forward and the show is going to be available online. Please standby for a wonderful opportunity to see the art of the Saltspring Printmakers and to support their work at this time.