I really didn’t think I was going to share this because…well you’ll see as you read. I am almost 60 so for nearly 1/2 a freaking century I’ve been making art. When I was 10 I rearranged my parents guest room, disassembled the bed, brought in tables from other rooms to make my ‘studio’. I sold drawings for $1 to family members. The focus of my life is to make art. Not to clean my house or travel or even have children. I only want to make art. But I have noticed in the past months that I was slowing down. I was unhappy with pieces and sometimes didn’t know where to start. But a month or so ago, I had the most beautiful fucking epiphany. I realized that from childhood and through art school, I was trained to create for the gaze of others. For the gaze of strangers. Somehow if they deem my work valuable then the worth is there. But as I sat at my table a few weeks ago, I thought, this work is for me. Only for me. No one needs to see it. And my work shifted. I am using pieces that I used to save for something special I would someday make. I don’t sit for hours trying to find the perfect configuration. I make my piece. And then move on and make the next piece. And I’m making everything in old books that are like a poetry journal. I do see the irony of publicly sharing this epiphany of making work without the concern of outside influences. But I also wonder if others may relate to the freeing nature of this new perspective. So here it is….my new perspective. With a few pieces 😎
Soon I’ll have a new collection of mats in the porch gallery. I’m slowly working on it. This is the third one in the series. I’m thinking of doing a Blue Velvet one next.
I call them Woolys. And there’s a story behind this new offering I have in the front porch gallery this week. It was during the pandemic shut down when shopping trips were selective and rare. And I ran out of dishwashing sponges. I was doing a lot of work with wool then so I thought, I’ll crochet a little rectangle the same size as a sponge. It worked ok for a day or two but quickly shrunk and felted into a tiny wool brick. So I replaced it with one of the granny squares I happened to be working on. And it was perfect. So perfect in fact, I’ve used them and given them as gifts ever since. And am finally adding them to the wares on the porch! These are always 100 % Canadian wool, in bright and cheerful colour combos. I hand wash and triple rinse them before packaging. I also put them in a hot dryer for an hour, so the felting process has already started. But I am truly burying the lead here. The secret is, these magic little squares will never get stinky and sour and just plain gross like kitchen sponges and cloths inevitably do. It’s the magic of wool!!! I keep mine in a pretty little teacup by the sink. Wool is also magically moisture wicking so it dries very quickly which helps keep the stinky bacteria away. And they gradually felt into a thicker, denser square, but because of all the extra space in the squares, it doesn’t effect their usefulness.
The Front Porch Gallery is on Logan Street in Portsmouth Village. And you can always come by.
Last fall the crows chose our little village as one of their spots to gather. It has given this endless winter a joyful energy. Each afternoon,, late in the day as the sun is just beginning to fade, they start to sweep toward us, filling the trees. Some days they’re louder than others. I listen for them every day. I call out to them telling them I love them and I feel honoured when they choose one of our trees to perch in. This morning they had a morning gathering, which I haven’t noticed before. I woke to their excited sounds. And it feels like a good day. Although I just got a text from Tom as he was driving away: ‘the crows sure did a number on our car’. Oh well, a little bit of annoyance makes the joy a little deeper.
So this is a long one, but I promised in my last post to post the contents of the box I received that turned me around, that reminded me to keep on keeping on. It was so packed with beauty it was hard to skip any of it. Hence, a reel over 3 minutes which is frowned upon here. Nevertheless, voila!! And thank you thank you @fattyhamster
For nearly a year I’ve been immersed in what I consider making art. Allowing it to spill from me, and gathering, collecting, compiling a little portfolio of work. For me that means cutting up books and layering paper images. Focus is a powerful thing but sometimes it’s more powerful to remember that two things can be true at once. And time allows me to create in different ways. Last week I was pissed off at my collage work and decided I’d finished with it. And my little front porch gallery needed a refresh so I’d start making mats. So I began work on this piece. For all intents and purposes I was leaving this collage work behind and putting my focus elsewhere. And then, a little miracle arrived. A gift that coincided with the start of the year of the fire horse, a box of the most magnificent papers and books and ephemera and postcards landed on my doorstep. And as I pored through this bounty it was just so obvious that I was being reminded that I can make piles of art that I don’t know who will ever see because I’m so shitty at the marketing part, and still full up my little porch with mats and cards and small handmade treasures. And so I’m making mats, but I’m not discarding the other work I love. And in the next post I’ll do an unboxing video to share the treasures that I received yesterday.
This is how my collage used to look. Fifteen years ago. I love this piece. It’s on the short list of my work I am most pleased with. An emperor de-limbed. My current work is more fractured and choppy. Perhaps a more accurate representation of the artist. Perhaps not.
#napoleon
#emperorwithnoclothes
#emperordelimbed
#collage
#fineartcollage
Today, and yesterday too, I’m consumed with giving my latest pieces titles. Some will remain untitled because they will not be boxed in by words. Or because they don’t need any further explanation. For some the title happens with ease, rolling off the tongue without a moments hesitation. And some will be stared at for hours waffling between possibilities. This was the first one I titled. It falls in the second category. I looked hard at it and said the title without realizing it was the title.
‘The Eyes Have It’. Done. Perfect. Now there are nine or ten more that need to find their descriptor, their nomenclature. Or not. But they will need to feel right as rain like this one does. The ayes have it. Tell me in the comments your process for giving titles to art pieces. Be it visual, music, writing…where do you find the words to encapsulate the piece?
And sometimes I just make stuff because I must. I save my scraps and I slap them into my little book. And then every so often a good one pops out at me.
