What do you believe in?

Thanks for the loan of the catalogue Mary!  I understand it is for sale from the Agnes Etherington Gallery for $22.

This week through the good graces of Mary MacDonald at Eastern Edge Gallery, I learned about another tattoo project:  Bernard Clark's Tattoo Portraits.  It is an exhibition originated by Agnes Etherington Gallery in Ontario.  This gallery has always been of interest to me.  They've done craft, African artifacts and a number of things that have aligned with my interests and so I keep a watch out for their name in the gallery listings.  I recommend them if you are ever in their neighbourhood, which is Queens University in Kingston.  Bernard Clark has done a lot of work for Skin & Ink magazine (do you want to see the pile of tattoo magazines on my living room floor?) and even photographed Angelina Jolie.  Celebrity factor in spades.  I studied the catalogue for the show.  The essay was basically Clark's resume and the photos didn't impress me because there was much evidence of Photoshop to manipulate the images.  When I shared the publication with Ned Pratt, he observed that the backgrounds had been dropped in.

I have a growing concern about the photography of tattoo subjects.  Last year when I had the good luck to be in Chicago for the SOFA Art fair, I noticed this image:

Invitation image from the Packer Schopf Gallery in Chicago.

I found it disturbing because, I felt (and you are welcome to disagree with me), they treated the tattoo individual like a sideshow freak. The image, at least in a version I saw, had really poor contrast and so was difficult to "read".  When I showed the photo to my son he commented simply, "Mom, they made him look like a toad".  It was a sensationalistic image that did not respect the fact that this was a man and not an animal.  Now, I know we are all mammals despite the fact that Socrates defined men as "featherless laughing bipeds".  But I do not want tattooed people to be laughing stocks.  I don't think it is fair; legal perhaps but not just.

Whenever subjects devolve into objects I get wary because it usually is an indication of disrespect.  Have you ever noticed how serviced has replaced served in the common usage of the English language?  Prostitutes "service" their customers, they do not serve them.  The auto mechanic services your car but he or she serves you.  Can you see the difference?  Sentence structure usually goes: subject, verb, object– with subjects being the doer and objects being the done to.  Language usage is a very clear indicator of held beliefs.

All Things Tattoo

This picture comes from James Lane's Facebook page

James Lane, known as Jimmy, was important to my decision to do the Tattoo Project and was on account of him that I wanted to call it More Than Skin Deep.  Jimmy is basically a walking memorial to his late mother who was murdered in her home when he was only nine.  He got his first tattoo, with her birth and death dates, when he was fourteen and has accumulated a body's worth since.  Many of them are based on his own drawings.  I was really struck by the contrast between the vulnerability in his eyes and the swagger of his ink.  His is a story of profound loss and the struggle to continue to "never give up" as one of his pieces reminds him.  I think that was when I became convinced of the autobiographical nature of a lot of tattooing.  This is a culture more about people or subjects and less about bodies or objects.  That is also why I wanted Ned Pratt to be the photographer on the project because I knew from first hand experience that he has the sensitivity and the technical ability to capture and communicate that with a camera.

Oddly enough, I has seen very few instances of tribal styled tattoos in St. John's.  Three so far:  one from Montreal as a pair of sleeves; one locally produced on a Corrections Officer who told it was based on his own drawings; and one outstanding example of shoulder work.  The shoulder work had unusual authority and reminded me very much of Maori carved masks.  The red headed basketball player who owned them explained to me that he acquired them in Singapore but yes the tattooist had been Maori.

Apparently the Canadian edition shows more breast that the American edition.

All things tattoo has crept into my "leisure reading" as well.  I am currently reading John Irving's Until I Find You, which follows the narrative of a second-generation tattoo artist and her son.  It is a typically huge Irving saga of several hundred pages.  The details drawn from tattoo studios in a number of countries are interesting.  Expressions like "sleeping among the needles" to indicate sleeping in the studio as the young Alice does are interesting.  And one example of a Scots apprentice being given a piece of flounder to work on is curious.  I was also reminded of a kind of tattoo I have not seen since I was a child.  I remember meeting one man with my father in the ports in Montreal.  He was an old sailor and he had a carp that would appear to swim when he flexed his muscles.  You really never know what you will see once you start looking.

Thanks to Susan Lee Stephan for sending this image

Oh those Celadon Greens –Emerging Artists Competitions and Studio Magazine

view of Amélie Proulx's winning artwork Jardinet Méchanique, which combines ceramics with microprocessors to create a moving gardenscape / photo Frances Juriansz

http://www.canadianart.ca/news/2013/10/16/amelie-proulx/#sthash.t8GwvhGr.dpuf

Some of you have been asking me about my reaction to how the RBC Emerging Artist Awards hosted at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Arts turned out, especially as my nomination Michael Flaherty did not win.  The winner was Amelie Proulx and I think she is deserving of the prize. Amelie's work caught my attention when I read a review written by Robin Metcalfe of her solo show that featured a floor work.  It was a ceramic carpet that moved and emitted sound.  Metcalfe's review was extremely sensitive and knowledgeable; he really did the work a service.  Anyhow, I could tell from the review that this was a ceramic artist whom I would have to keep on my radar.  And Proulx's work has never disappointed me since.

Maja Padrov of New Brunswick (who was one of my two picks for HOT MUD) admires Amelie Proulx's work, which is radically different from her own.  Put in a nutshell Padrov is "hard" and Prolux is "soft".  When I asked Maja about this she said, I'm often attracted to the work that doesn't resembles mine, there's some softness and gentleness in Amelie's garden, those movements and sound somehow perfectly match the visual part for me... 

Now, the way the Gardiner competition is structured with experts picking the best from their region, the semi-finalists so to speak, and the public picking the winner, quality is ensured.  Every artist who makes it into the competition is already worthy of being a winner, which is to say they are among the cream of the crop.  Anyone of them deserves the $10,000 award.

It was no surprise that just about everyone who was in the Gardiner competition would end up also being in the Burlington's 35th Anniversary show, HOT MUD.  And this is a real indicator, a double blind test if you will, of who is going to be in the "business" ten years from now.  Careers are being cemented, successful careers with reputations.

I had two thoughts provoked by these competitions and it will be interesting to see if I believe the same things once we see how the Schantz emerging awards at the Clay and Glass Gallery in Kitchener Waterloo plays out.  My thoughts were:  One, that emerging artists today are much stronger than they were a decade, or longer, ago.  And two, those emerging artists have much more distinctive styles compared with their predecessors.  Gone is the day when emerging artists were clones of their teachers.

Once upon a time, it would have been enough to master a celadon glaze (for example) and to have it grace an accomplished piece of throwing – a grand marriage of surface and form.  Not any more.  Amelie Proulx's work is often in celadon and it pools magnificently on the details of her forms.  But then there's so much more happening: other senses and ideas integrated.  The result is work that is subtle, engaging and thought provoking.  For HOT MUD, Robin Lambert had a piece that was an assemblage of suspended porcelain tiles inscribed "just for you" and suspended.  His glaze was also celadon.  What was daring and delicious was that he also hung a pair of scissors nearby.  The bold ones among us snipped a thread and took a tile.  It was a sculpture we were in essence being encouraged to take away.  Was this an act of artist generosity or vandalism on the part of the public?  Either way, it was a subversion of the "do not touch" maxim and the sanctity and latent commercialism behind the production of objects.  You can't sell what you are giving away.  It stood a lot of the ceramic world on its head.

This week my commentary in Studio magazine has also hit the stands and subscribers' homes.  This is my rant against art-speak and how it alienates and limits the size of our audiences.  Guess what, the cover is also celadon green.

Maestros and Pirates

Craft's very own pirate, the man in the eye patch Dale Chihuly in Montreal with one of his chandelier creations.

As October draws to a close I find myself grinding my teeth and thinking.  Time to report in to the faithful, especially those of you who have reminded me that I am not usually late to post a blog.  Alright, time to 'fess up.

I have been in Montreal gorging on a blockbuster of an exhibition, the Dale Chihuly exhibition at the Musée des Beaux Arts, which I will be reporting on for Studio magazine.  I have a lot of very strong opinions on this topic but I need to keep a lid on it in order to remain professional.  Let if suffice to say that I have summarized the show in my notes as, "Disneyland goes to Murano".  Murano is the glassblowing island off the coast of Venice.  It is virtually hallowed ground for the glassblowing community worldwide.

Allow me a small indulgence.  A lifetime ago I was visiting Murano with my then husband.  Naturally, we had to visit the bookstore attached to the glass blowing facility.  I excitedly picked up a copy of Dan Klein's  Glass, A Contemporary Art and, flipped to the chapter on Canada and read in fascination.  "Wow, I thought I really agree with this Klein guy, I wonder who his sources are?"  So, I flipped to the back of the book and find myself cited five times.  That's when I became an authority on glass art.  The number I use for articles I have published is roughly based on my invoicing.  I long ago lost track of articles, reprints, citations and digital versions.  The only truly honest answer to how much I have published is "a lot".  Book chapters seem to survive the longest because they get used in school curriculum.

On a less enthusiastic note, the Tattoo Project has hit a hitch in the road.  I prefer to think of it as a bend in the road.  Eastern Edge Gallery has turned us down but I am not too surprised frankly because they received more than a 140 exhibition proposals for a calendar of only five spots.  That bodes very well for the Gallery and I am proud of them.  Also, three other galleries in the St. John's area have indicated interest so I remain hopeful that the inked folks who have graciously participated can still see the show first hand.  Onwards and upwards.

The oh so talented Brian Downton looking strong for Ned's camera.  Photo courtesy of Ned Pratt and Brian Downton.

This Salty Water - Definitely Not a Landscape Show

     

Controlled Dive by Gerald Vaandering.

Serigraph on plastic

40” X 60”

1 of 1

2012

This past Friday I had the distinct pleasure of a gallery visit and lunch with Gerald Vaandering.  The occasion was his solo show, This Salty Water, at Christina Parker Gallery.  This is a must-see show, with only a few dates left–until October 26th, pencil it in on your calendar. 

My curiosity was sparked months ago, when Gerald Vaandering responded to the ubiquitous question, "what are you working on now?" by saying that he was hiring people, dressing them in suits and then throwing them into a swimming pool.  David Hockney's swimming pool series flashed through my mind.  They are large, visually engaging representations of the cultural icon that symbolizes luxury and indolence.  I wondered what scale Vaandering would be working in, how would he handle the question of suits, in how much detail, so and so forth.  Before long I had a list of questions and associations that was longer than my proverbial arm.

Vanndering also has a blog that you can consult: http://geraldvaandering.blogspot.ca/

I found this blog really useful in understanding his process of printmaking and painting.  It is interesting to follow his decision making process.  Most of the works are printed on a kind of mylar that is prepared in a manner that reminded me of Russian icon painting, which builds up from gesso.

Most of the works in the show are large scale and to Vaandering's credit he pulls it off.  The work never feels inflated.  It is a show of big ideas.  I was particularly drawn to his use of images drawn from stock market reports.  Columns of company names and figures are twisted and torqued; they assume a disorienting fluidity instead of the orderly world of control and objectivity.  The columns have a drunken quality– the phrase "ground shifting underfoot" came to my mind while I studied them.  The images are in essence a portrait of our times, how the global market has influenced our culture, as witnessed by the worldwide ripple of financial ruin that took place in 2008.  Correspondingly, this is a show that is pulled from the headlines that ring true, whether you are in Pouch Cove, Newfoundland (where Gerald Vaandering is based) or New York City, N.Y.  This is our world.  This is the new Newfoundland.

Head Above Water by Gerald Vaandering.  All images supplied by artist.

Serigraph on plastic

40” X 60”

2 of 2

2012

The falling and swimming figures conjure up much, both as metaphor and more literal connotations.  The figures will recall for some the first stock market crash, when desperate business men leapt to their deaths from their office buildings.  While others will bring forth the 9/11 disaster with its own horrible memories. Either way, the suited male and female figures are our Everyman (woman), presenting us with a likeness of what our pervasive business culture is today.  Despite the grim reality they suggest, the images are compelling in part due to their seductive use of colour and texture and spare details.

There is so much that can be said about this show.  For example, what does this show say in contrast to Michael Snow's Walking Women series?  I could go on forever.  In closing I will say that it would be great if this show could tour and give audiences on the mainland, and both sides of the north/south border, a taste of what contemporary Newfoundland art really looks like.

Feast of Pottery Feeds the Eyes and the Soul

A week where the first Canadian, Alice Munro, won the Nobel Prize for literature; a brilliantly sunny long weekend in the Fall that seems almost uncanny in Newfoundland; what more could you ask for?  Well, the Festival of New Dance brought a bumper crop of delights for the senses: pig boys, acrobatics, percussive tappers, cheerleaders, and an enchanting couple who mingled tuning forks, and a double bass into a most unusual ménage a trois.  What, you still want more?

Then try The Feast of Pottery complete with inspiring floral arrangements.  Masterminded by Alexis Templeton the 2013 incarnation showcases the work of sixteen potters laid out as a banquet table that stretches the length of the exhibition hall of The Plantation at Quidi Vidi.  This is the fourth time the annual event has grabbed the attention of potters and pottery collectors alike.  It is a commercial event that combines the intensity of a pop-up event that lasts only 3 days but far outstrips the quality of many gallery shows mounted by public or private organizers.  The architectural pleasures of the building combined with its multiple views of the invigorating landscape are a welcome bonus to an already rich visual event.

This year the metaphorical table stretched further than it ever has, incorporating stunning tableware from both sides of the Canada- U.S.A. border and stretching from coast to coast within the country, from British Columbia to Newfoundland and Labrador.  What caught my eye was the quality of the plates, bowls, etc the potters had sent to Alexis Templeton for the event.  I am very familiar with work of the husband and wife team, Ray Mackie and Deb Kuyzk, known as Lucky Rabbit, having curated it in exhibitions and seeing it at craft fairs and commercial shows over the years in at least two provinces.  With confidence, I can say that the stunning heron dinner set that represented them on the epic dinner table at The Plantation was head and shoulders above much of their earlier work.  Whoever purchased these pieces, and I understand they sold early, has obtained some important examples of Lucky Rabbit work.  Form, function, decoration –every detail, in every aspect was attended to with evident love, skill and expression.

Ray Mackie throws the forms and Deb Kuzyk decorates them.

The Feast of Pottery combined a startling and satisfying range of work from Inge Vincent's whisper-thin, elegant white lanterns and vessels from Denmark, to Katrina Chaytor's trademark lobed platters, to King's Point Pottery's warm and sensual salt and soda ware.  Speaking of King's Point Pottery, I found it interesting to see details such as button adornments on a cream and sugar set succeed where in past years I felt they undermined the authority of the work.  King's Point Pottery, who is the collaborative team of life partners Linda Yates and David Hayashida, have clearly refined their work.  Isabella St. John's most recent tableware also set a new standard providing fresh evidence that her skills are not limited to vases and sculptural work.  It is a delight when us clay-hedonists can get to use what we so admire.  Excellent functional ceramics is almost like having your cake and eating it too.

Brent Coffin's Feathered Finery

Yvette modelling Brent Coffin's latest creation Bronze Angel

Last Sunday, Brent Coffin and I got together for a late lunch at The Rocket Bakery and a downtown gallery hopping session.  The man has a thing for feathers, no doubt about it.  Can you blame him?  Feathers represent so much.  Light as air, soft to the touch, reflect light like magic and they represent flight.  You've got it all: fashion statement, design icon and a metaphor to cap it off.  (A feather in the artist's cap?  OK, too much.)

We tend to think of feathers as something you'd wear on the back, as in wings.  But placed on the front of the gown they are an eye grabbing reversal.  It makes for one hell of a dramatic bodice.  Visually it is engaging because it is like a bird of prey swooping down…that's how we'd normally see wings at this angle.

this is from a 1990 flash art book by Seda

Wings have been on my mind lately because I see them frequently in tattoos on people's backs.  I have heard about one gay man who has spectacular angel wings and each time he has lost a loved one he has a tattoo of a single feather done on his calf.  The wings on the feet remind me of Mercury the messenger.  I am also reminded of the mutant superhero character who as a child would take a grater to his wings and painfully remove the wings that kept growing back.  It is a heart wrenching scene of a young man desperate to fit into a world that does not appreciate what makes him special.

Wings also represent freedom, the ability to fly away and escape, to soar high above life's problems.  I think that is in part of the reason why birds have appealed to artists for centuries.  And of course, they represent the divine: creatures of the sky. In classical mythology and Eastern religions they were the messengers of the gods. Today they are nature's angels.

I think of humans as angels.  Hybrid creatures that exist somewhere between good and evil, the divine and the beastial.  Hybrids are the ultimate postmodern creature or creation.  A combination of elements, the culmination of elements from the past.  Rather like DJs who sample music and sound, contemporary art and studio craft is a compilation of media from across disciplines.  I guess you could say humans are mixed media creatures.

Owls are a favourite subject of Michael Massie's and his carver's mark is V like a bird's wings.