backtracking 8/8: sticks and stones

And finally, the reason for our trip. The Sticks and Stones exhibition!

Welcome to Ciel Gallery.

Seems as though I'm often the outsider looking in...

Ciel Gallery owner Pamela Pardue Goode and her charming father.

My Jerzy sitting back and observing the evening.

My work and the wonderful work of Susan Springer Anderson. Followed by some of my favourite pieces from the show...

Amber Zavada

Pamela Pardue Goode

Susan Springer Anderson

Ken Knowlton

Jeannette Brossart

Follow this link and go to page 70 to read an article in the April issue of Today's Charlotte Woman. I was pleased to see a photo of one of my pieces and a paragraph describing my influences and my work (taken from my website I guess).

backtracking 7/8: mint museum of craft + design

We also squeezed in a visit to the Mint Museum of Craft + Design which I thoroughly enjoyed. Here are some of my favourite pieces. I seemed to be in a glass and metal mood. Must have been the influence of the city. The last two photos are jewellery pieces and the very last one is made entirely of hypodermic needles.

backtracking 2/8: blog buddies

March the 2nd. After delivering my pieces to Ciel Gallery in Charlotte we hit the road again especially to visit (and meet for the first time) two of my blog buddies. We headed towards the Great Smoky Mountains and the next day met up with Kathy Van Kleeck (above) and had a wonderful Southern breakfast with biscuits and grits (my first grits ever and I love them) followed by a visit to some galleries in the artsy city of Asheville. As expected, we really connected but we were absolutely certain of it when we bonded (and drooled) over some amazing art by the artist Leslie Walker Noell (click here as well).

After lunch we headed further into the mountains to the town of Boone (note the twisty road in the photo) to visit Jessica of Wayfaring Wanderer and her boyfriend Cody. Jessica recommended a walk near her house so we got to stretch our legs a bit and see the area where she takes many of her amazing photographs before meeting them and heading out to a Thai restaurant. We had a lovely evening and a delicious meal. Unfortunately almost all my photographs of us are blurry so I suggest you go to Jessica's post for some better photos!

Meeting my blog buddies was certainly a highlight of the trip. Looking forward to more of that soon...

the wives

When I saw my friend Laurie Boisvert's latest piece, "the wives", I was awestruck. She has created a series of silver lockets to represent each of Henry VIII's wives. I find this work to be very evocative and a good balance between well-conceived and visceral. You won't see these lockets on her website - these photos were taken by one of the galleries that show her work - but you will find many more fascinating pieces on her shiny objects site. She has given her permission for me to share them with you here. Enjoy...

wall art, open frame-mounted sterling silver with pomegranate seeds encased (Catherine of Aragon)

wall art, open frame-mounted sterling silver with hinged links (Anne Boleyn)


wall art, open frame-mounted sterling silver locket with needle point inside/silk thread (Jane Seymour)


wall art, open frame-mounted sterling silver with kuembo interior: 22 karat gold leaf fused onto sterling silver (Anne of Cleves)


wall art, open frame-mounted sterling silver locket and rose bush clipping (Catherine Howard)


wall art, open frame-mounted sterling silver and paper (Catherine Parr)

comfort in affinity

Yesterday I went to Galerie René Blouin to see a tribute exhibition of Betty Goodwin's work. It seemed a fitting place to go and pay homage because René Blouin was a great friend of Betty Goodwin's and represents her work (as well as the work of another of my favourite artists, Kiki Smith).

There were prints, assemblage, sculpture, drawings, and paintings. The smallest work in the show caught my eye. While I am quite familiar with much of Betty Goodwin's work, I hadn't encountered this piece before. It was a small plexiglass box with the skeleton of a small bird attached by wire to a metal plate and a handful of long black hair coiled like a nest beneath it. The bird's skeleton was mostly exposed with some evidence of dried flesh. It was exquisite. Typical of Betty Goodwin's work, it was stark yet tenderly vulnerable.

I was drawn to the tiny pearlescent feet of the bird and was immediately taken back a few months ago to a bird that flew into our window and did not survive. At that time, I was moved by the fragile beauty of this dead bird and I photographed it. Revisiting these photos, triggered by and connected to the piece I viewed yesterday, and experienced in the state of melancholy that I have been inhabiting lately, gives me great comfort. I share some of those photos with you now and perhaps the emotion which accompanies them.

betty goodwin 1923 - 2008

Betty Goodwin, Passing Through (Nerves Series), 1994

I've not been on top of the news these days and I have only just learned that Betty Goodwin died on December 1st at the age of 85. Betty Goodwin's work resonates with me in a way that no other work does. I relate to her imagery, I connect with her use of materials, and I respond to her work in a deeply visceral manner. There is recognition on so many levels. It is the intimacy, the fragility, the subtlety, the vulnerability expressed in her work which moves me. Her passing saddens me but there is comfort in knowing that her work will continue to influence the work of others. Including mine.

Betty Goodwin, Black Arms, 1985

Here is an excerpt from a Maclean's article from 1998 which makes an excellent start in describing her work: Betty Goodwin draws on the skin of things. She makes art with flattened shrouds of disembodied clothes, old vests pressed into paper like dried flowers. She stitches scars onto a black tarpaulin that hangs folded, with ropes dangling, like a stage curtain. She works dark bruises into paper and Mylar. And in her body of work, the body is always making itself felt, as a vessel of memory, the flesh smudged by love or torture. She draws swimmers who may or may not be drowning. Bodies that could be floating or falling. Bones, nerves, phantom limbs illuminated by pain. But behind the dull ache and discreet terror, there is a resilient beauty. And an openness. Her work resonates with echoes of the work being done and undone - the shuddering rhythm of countless erasures, and the presence of penciled figures left unerased from early drafts, like pictographs from past lives.

Betty Goodwin, Figure/Ladder Series, IV, 1996

i love your blog

Isn't this music to a bloggers ears! Shayla Perreault Newcomb honoured me with this award and I am so very delighted. Shayla, I love YOUR blog! Thanks so much for this acknowledgement. I am touched! Now I will pass it on to other award-worthy bloggers! Here are the rules:

1. Please put the logo on your blog.
2. Link the person from whom you received your award.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put the links of those blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message on their blogs to tell them!

There are so many blogs that I love and visit regularly. This list of nominated blogs includes some great blogs that maybe you haven't discovered yet. I nominate:

1. jeane at art it...because of her hilarity and the documented progress of her amazing artwork
2. uschi at papierwelt...because of her gentle approach to art and life
3. thinker online...because of his thought-provoking quotes on art and philosophy
4. kathy at waking up...because of the inspiring way she delves into self and art
5. arnold at the butterfly effect...because of his sensitive and compelling black and white photography
6. jo at J°...because of the beauty and spareness of her images and text
7. diana at please sir...for her evocative studies of art and science

the pulse

If you normally visit my blog and notice that not much is happening over the next few days, it's because I'm away for a bit. So now that you have a few extra minutes of time on your hands, go on over to the altered page where seth apter has put together "the pulse", an amazing collection of artist responses on a variety of topics. It's fascinating stuff. And very inspirational. I urge you...go there now!

mouche studio gallery

Friday was vernissage evening at Mouche Mosaics! Behold the yummy food we were privileged to try. I am one of about eight artists who exhibit and sell their work at Mouche Studio Gallery here in Hudson. It's an intimate and lovely space promoting the work of local artisans. It's run by Melissa Davidson who does mosaic workshops and mosaic commissions and Anne Brisson who creates papier mache sculpture, drawings, and functional art. Here are some photos of their work:

Two of Anne's "works in progress"... although I love them in their raw form.

This piece just sold!

And this "cat creature" is waiting for a home.

Melissa's mosaic mouche (fly in French)!

...and more of Melissa's stuff. Watch for her favourite tool on an upcoming "tool tuesday". Can you guess what it may be?

In addition to Anne and Melissa, there were four other artisans at the vernissage. Here are some peeks at their work:

Joanna's work

Camilla's work

Yoshiko's work

And mine!