Katherine Zsolt Delves Deep

What a blast from the past!  Back in 2010 I heard from artist Katherine Zsolt based in Sonoma California.  Katherine had tracked me down through the Newfoundland and Labrador Craft Council.  When I had last written about Zsolt's art it was 1986 and we both lived in Toronto.  It turned out that a review I had written about a group furniture show at Leo Kamen Gallery, which she was a part of, had had an influence on how she regarded her practice afterward.  Sure enough, Zsolt quoted from the review in her website.  She asked if I was interested in contributing an essay to a significant project, a solo show Zsolt had undertaken at the incredible Icehouse Alternative Arts Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.  To be honest, I was not quite certain what I was getting into but I went with my gut and said yes. 

Zsolt sent me a book by Marion Woodman to read, Leaving My Father's House, A journey to Conscious Femininity because it inspired much of her current work. I read and reread that book and came away with a new appreciation for Jungian analysis and how it evolved via feminism –not in the political sense, but in the wise woman sense.  It is intriguing to think of the feminine as it affects both men and women.  It boils down to the feminine principle and the intuitive.  Zsolt had gone on to do powerful work with the human figure, after that furniture show, with body casting.

For the essay, I would use a Jungian approach to interpret her work.  But we realized through the course of interviews that in terms of art history Zsolt could be best understood as a surrealist.  Think of surrealism in contemporary filmmaking, for example Sergei Parajanov's Color of Pomegrantes and you get a sense of the inner landscape made visible and the bold dramatic flair that Zsolt exhibits as well.  We also discussed fairytales and brought that into the essay, like so:

Zsolt has consistently been attracted to fairy tales as archetypal narratives that explore the vulnerability and wisdom of women and children.  Like Woodman she asserts that the feminine exists within men and women, old and young, and is a valuable asset.  The language of both dreams and fairy tales subverts rational or conventional masculine thinking.  It is like a mirror world where one thing appears as another: left is right, up is down and the useless hairy beast is a resourceful integrated princess.  It is not a simple case of disguise but rather a positioning of opposites as not just complementary but symbiotic.  They are part of the same continuum where one becomes the other.  And this is where the optimism creeps in, the possibility of resolution or transformation.

Zsolt's show in Phoenix was mind altering.  It featured 39 casts of real children cocooned onto the walls of the 2,500 square foot roofless structure.  The floor was intentionally flooded with jet black water.  In Zsolt's words, it was "visually impenetratable…completely reflective.  The boardwalk permitted the viewer entry into the center of the room allowing a visceral experience of the reflections of the children, of the changing light and moving sky, the silence –and if the viewer was open to it–the infinite."  In short, it was a roaring success.

Since then, Katharine and I have kept each other on the periphery of each other's radar.  She recently told me that she is restoring art to pay the bills while she continued her sculpture practice and that museums continued to be interested in her work.

Her sculpture practice has broadened to incorporate non-figurative elements with water like the bed installation in the studio shot below.  Zsolt has a way with water.  Her work evokes water as a signifier of emotion, change, the intuitive and loss of control.  Her work allows the viewer to experience all this first hand: water as emotion, like tears (versus dry logic); water as change as when a woman-in-labour's water breaks or as baptismal water; water as the loss of control as in being swept away or drowned.  We can dream and learn while still awake.

This is a link to Katherine Zsolt's website:

http://www.kzsolt.com/

Ann Roberts: with both fear and intrepid enthusiasm

A 50-year retrospective exhibition is a significant milestone in a career by anyone's measurement.  It is a time for assessment, reflection and for facing the demons of past misinterpretation and setting the record straight.  The title of this exhibition, Ann Roberts: with both fear and intrepid enthusiasm, reflects the mixed emotions that come with such a milestone.  It reflects fear and hope like the two sides of a coin, or like the two-headed Roman god Janus, who oversees beginnings and transitions.  Janus looks to the future and the past in opposite directions.  Together, fear and enthusiasm– or hope–represents a whole spectrum of emotions.  This "wholeness" is very characteristic of Roberts and her ceramics practice as a sculptor on a variety of levels.

The preceding paragraph is the opener for my essay in the catalogue for the Ann Roberts retrospective that opens up January 29, 2012 and runs until April 8th at the Clay & Glass Gallery in Waterloo.  January, by the way, was named after the god Janus whom I invoke in the introduction. 

When the curator of the Clay & Glass, Christian Bernard Singer, called and asked if I would write the lead essay for the catalogue I immediately said yes.  My dance card was full but I wanted to find a way to do this project.  Back in '93, I had done a 20-year retrospective of Ann's sculpture for the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery.  So although, the timing was less than ideal I thought I could pull the rabbit out of the hat.  Ann had come to St. John's years ago to do a clay workshop and we got together then to catch up.  Also, she had always been on my radar since the '93 retrospective, I was aware that she had continued to grow as an artist and that her work had evolved significantly.  It would be interesting to find out more.

There was also a personal reason for taking on the assignment.  Ann was grieving the unexpected death of her husband.  I remember Gwilym as tall and athletic.  As a geologist he really enjoyed Newfoundland and its lunar landscape.  Gwilym could have stepped out of Chariots of Fire.  When he went in for a knee replacement no one expected him to die, least of all Ann.  I wanted to be a part of Ann's healing after such a heart-breaking loss.  Contributing to the success of this show would be meaningful.  Not just another gig.

The professional in me was curious to discover what needed to be said about Ann Roberts the sculptor that had not been said before.  My contribution was a more Jungian interpretation of Ann's work with a dash of Tantra thrown in.  See both Ann's Floating Woman pictured above and her Fish Encounter below.  Ann's female figures, to me, are not just about women but about the feminine principle.  The woman and fish are, to me, like ying and yang or a union of female and male energies.

I also took the opportunity to reach out to Aggie Beynon and Jonathon Bancroft Snell who had represented Ann's work commercially to learn about the perceptions of the public and Ann's collectors.  Dealers are always worth talking to in my experience.  They have a wonderful vantage point and oodles of contextual experience.  Finally, I knew I was supposed to be doing this assignment when on early Saturday morning I walked in to my son's Christmas concert in downtown St. John's and was introduced by my husband to Jane and Tony Urquhart.  Jane is the novelist (of course) and her (Order of Canada/ painter) husband was there.  They were visiting St. John's and attending their granddaughter's concert.  Tony Urquhart had been Ann Roberts' colleague at the University of Waterloo, Fine Arts Department for decades.  He gave me a lovely quote for the essay.  I could not have made it happen any better.

Here's the link to the Clay & Glass:

http://www.theclayandglass.ca/ 

Larger Than Life, Exhibition in Print 2011

Let's start with a confession: 

I am drawn to intensity like a moth to a flame.  And I don't think I am alone.  Today's society finds something particularly resonant in the notion of "living large".  We are attracted to stories of the little guy who makes it big, celebrities, the royal family, disasters and triumphs.  Judges on televised competitions urge talented contestants to "leave their hearts on the stage" and to give it all they've got.  Audiences want it big and they want it now.

This was my opening paragraph for a project that rolled off the presses just before Christmas.  It is the Metal Arts Guild of Canada's Exhibition in Print 2011.  This gig was a blast.  I developed a menu of show themes for a call for entry.  The board of directors of MAGC were my focus group and helped me figure out what would best appeal to their members.  We received 165 entries and I was told to cut that down to an elite 21 entries that would be published.  That's a rejection rate of 87%. 

During the months leading up to the selection period I indulged in research.  I read Susan Adam's biography of Vivaldi because he is associated with the advent of the virtuoso performer, the individual standing apart from the crowd and of course Italian opera. - Both instances of "larger than life" art forms.  I was in the U.K. for the summer so I feasted on the V&A both its jewellery and metal collections but also studying the jewellery on the Buddhas and other statuary.  It was an excuse to revisit the royal jewels at the Tower of London and to romp through contemporary commercial galleries.  I visited cathedrals and took special note of their ceremonial vessels.  In other words, I had a great deal of fun in the name of research.

When the fall rolled around it was time to do the curatorial work: selecting work and writing the essay.  Mary McIntyre and Dianne Karg Baron kept me on course and edited the essay.  They were a delight to work with and I really came away with the impression that MAGC was serious about upping its game.

Were there any surprises with the job?  What did I learn? I was struck by how the theme was interpreted by the members.  And the 4 prizewinners demonstrate this.  First place was Paul McClure for his brooch (shown on the cover) that was about the microscopic world that lies beneath our skin.  Talk about potent essence.  Small object: mega impact.  Second prize went to Claudio Pino - my Vivaldi in metal, ornament on ornament, grace notes galore.  Third prize went to Karin Jones for her ornamented set of farm tools using a medieval technique originally intended for the testosterone world of royal amour.  And the student award went to Heba Kandil for her Apparatus for Revolution, which adorns the fist of resistance in the face of social injustice.  Big issues, big ideas with lots of intellectual meat for me to critically engage with.

To see pictures of the prize winning entries, check out the Metal Arts Guild website: http://www.metalartsguild.ca/

Don Porcella at the Museum of Art & Design, NYC

On Thursday December 29, 2011 I was in New York City.  After we visited the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side (for my husband) and Nintendo World at the Rockefeller Center (for my son) we trundled off to the Museum of Art & Design (for me!).  There were three noteworthy exhibitions: an exhibit of Japanese contemporary craft drawn from the permanent collection, a visiting exhibit of new Korean craft-based art and an exhibit that traced the evolution of Modernism in American craft. 

The Japanese group show was drop-dead gorgeous yet lyrical.  The elegant baskets and wabi-sabi pots are "timeless" if they suit your taste and "dated" if they don't.  (Personally, I think they are beautiful.) The Korean group show was edgy, energetic and opinionated with digital flourishes, uses of recycled material such as an impressive Minotaur from car tires, and huge classical vases made from soap instead of ceramics.

The standout in the Modernist show was not the objects themselves –say Sheila Hick's textiles or Sam Maloof's furniture–but an interactive timeline that situated the objects in a variety of contexts whether it was social, like the advent of "the Pill", or cultural like the Beatle's music, or political like the Vietnam War.  Now, we get the real benefit of the retrospective gaze.

The highlight of our trip to the MAD was a visit to the open studio, where Don Porcella had just started a residency.  Don Porcella works with pipe cleaners to create life-sized sculptures.  His "art dealer" kept us company with its Crayola palette and cozy plush animal textures.  On the table were sample segments so we could see how Porcella uses chicken wire as an armature to make large scale and volume possible.  He explained to me that he like the ready-made quality of working with pipe cleaners.  I replied that they had a pop culture feel and that sent him reaching for his portfolio.  Porcella showed me images of some of his other sculptures including his versions of Warhol's Brillo Box and Duchamp's urinal/fountain.  In one sculpture they were being "burnt" on a pipe cleaner pyre.  In another, Porcella had interpreted the famous Australopithecus Lucy as a graffiti artist cave painter complete with spray cans.

I glanced at Porcella's resume and noticed that he had two degrees in painting and asked about the move from 2D to 3D.  He explained that he had worked in encaustic and showed me images from that time period.  Guess what?  The paintings had the same palette as the pipe cleaners.  Porcella's first encaustic creations were made from Crayola crayons.  Earlier in the conversation, Porcella had also mentioned his mother was a weaver.  All the pieces fell into place: ready-mades, pop culture, the accessibility of pipe cleaners for the viewer, mom the weaver as a role figure, and paintings that had taken on 3D shape.  Don Porcella and I smiled broadly at each other and as my family left his studio he chased out the door to offer my son a multicolored handful of pipe cleaners.

I look forward to seeing more of Porcella's sculpture.  It is irreverent but positive.  In contrast to the exhibits I had just seen at MAD, Porcella's work did not have the preciousness of the Japanese work nor the self-importance and preoccupation with materiality and technique of the Korean work.

Don weaving with pipe cleaners - photo courtesy of the artist.

Modern Nativity by Rachel Ryan

This glue-gun fiesta is Modern Nativity by Rachel Ryan, which I purchased from her recent solo show, Waking Dreams, at the Craft Council Gallery in St. John's.  It was listed NFS but I was smitten and when I had the opportunity to interview Rachel I asked if she was interested in selling it to me.   It is a fine example of messy craft, an exuberance of glitz and glam.  To me it was funny, irreverent and just what I needed going into the holiday season.  Remember what I said, "life is messy so why can't craft be?"  Rachel Ryan has been known for superb design sense and finely controlled technique.  I was really intrigued when I saw her take on kitsch.  Ryan's life over the past few years has been a rollercoaster ride of events and emotions:  her mother finally passing away after a battle with cancer, the end of her marriage after several years, etc.  She was giving herself permission to color outside of the lines.  This is what I wrote in my notebook at the show, "Rachel Ryan has exploded out of her cocoon.  Ryan has created a body of drawings and wall hangings and mixed media installations that bristle with bold energy and powerful emotions.  Gone are the contemplative landscapes, the icebergs that on closer inspections contained women or the birch tress that housed stately spirits.  They have been replaced with equally soulful work but this latest show is extroverted rather than inward looking.  Waking Dreams is a centrifugal storm, an outpouring of complex colors, spiraling stitches and layers upon layers of quilted swatches of fabric and paper." Ryan's work was about - as one piece was titled- The Wreckage of Change.  Not just her personal life but also the social backdrop of tsunamis, financial crisis and war, which had extra meaning for Rachel as she had been part of a military family, a boat in tow through a succession of postings.  So, when the only thing in life that is permanent is your marker maybe what you need is a little kitsch.  The occasion for the interview was preparation for a tour I gave in mid October to a cruise group traveling with Adventure Tours.  Novelist Kevin Major was their group organizer.  

Martha Stewart & Craft

What a pair of sourpusses!  Back in 1997 before she was a felon, Martha Stewart visited Newfoundland.  Bill Gates was picking up the tab as he had hired her to do a piece for an e-magazine he had recently launched.  I think it was called Mongopark.  Anyhow, Martha brought her entourage and filmed a segment for her TV programme at the same time.  Martha was not nice, I remember watching her interact with her crew and I never heard her say please or thank you and she really ordered them around.  I thought to myself, "if this is what success looks like I don't want it."  But I was impressed with her ability to focus.  The lady was like a laser.  And she was very intelligent  The Craft Council of NL opened up so that Martha could shop privately.  A few members were invited to be on hand to answer questions about their work.  I was also invited to help with the answers and Martha asked me about hooked mats.  In the end she bought a hooked mat with a moose on it.  She was disappointed that she did not see one during her visit.  Martha did ask questions about Newfoundland's tradition of mat making.  It was clear she had done her homework and already knew about Grenfell.  I wonder about the impact Martha has had on the state of craft practice.  I'll end this post by showing the more public face that Martha usually shows on camera.  Life is messy why shouldn't craft be messy sometimes too.

At this year's University Art Association of Canada conference - an annual event for academics and scholars of art history- her name came up more than once during the craft sessions.  This year the session of 8 papers focussed on the theme of "messy craft" a term we've inherited from Glenn Adamson in the U.K.  It refers to the practice of deliberately flaunting the conventions of masterful technique within craft practice.  Think of it as abstract expressionism versus realism.  You'd never think of Martha Stewart in terms of messy craft unless, as Sandra Alfoldy pointed out in her presentation, it is to describe an amateur's failed attempt to aspire to Martha's perfection.  

Surface Design Journal-Canadian Perspectives

Barb Hunt's The Old Lie

Each year the Surface Design Journal publishes an international issue with a focus on another country.  This year it was Canada's turn and I was asked to write the lead article.  It was released in late October.  Several months prior, Patricia Malarcher started discussing the article.  What was distinctive to Canada?  Where there any unique historical textile traditions?  I started out looking at things like the hooked mats on the East Coast, etc.  But a hooked mat from Maine looks a lot like a hooked mat from New Brunswick.  That started me thinking about regionalism in Canada, which in turn made me consider how our population is strung along our border.  I recalled how the cowboy culture of Alberta that I experienced out in Banff was similar to the culture I experience south of the border in the same region.  But I didn't expect a readership of textile artists in the States to be interested in a social studies lesson.  Patricia and I agreed that I would discuss regionalism, multiculturalism, etc as seen in the work of contemporary Canadian textiles.  It wouldn't be a dog and pony show with lots of artists but be more exclusive.  So, I picked Barb Hunt from NL to talk about the Canadian position on international peacekeeping, pacificism, etc.  Her work (seen above) made from military uniforms to depict the map of the world was a great starting point.  The piece is called the Old Lie - and represents the military presence through out the world.

Kai Chan, Silk

To discuss Canada's early recognition of gay marriage, multiculturalism, language and tolerance I picked Kai Chan's work for its lyricism and nuance.  Kai can do so much with subtle grace in his work and he touches on these issues.

Sharon Kallis, The Ivy Canoe

The third artist that I selected was Sharon Kallis from B.C. - who by the way is featured in the current issue of Canadian art.  Sharon works with teams of volunteers and communities learning their concerns and talents.  They harvest invasive species and use them as natural raw materials for her fibre creations: quilts, boat sized baskets and installations.  The work of Kallis allowed me to talk about the Canadian landscape, our relationship with nature and touch on colonialism as seen through the lens of ecology.  To quote Kallis, "There is a uniqueness to everyone's mark and what they make even if everyone is doing the same action.  It's like the saying about Canada being a mosaic.  We are part of the ecology and it is important that we don't dominate it."