Show's open!

The show "What passes for Spring" opened at Christina Parker Gallery on Saturday, May 15, and J. M. Sullivan's article about it was in The Telegram on Friday. You can see it at http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=340729&sc=85

These days, I am finishing up the paintings for a show at Christina Parker. These are smaller than the paintings at The Rooms, but still focus on icebergs, with a little fog thrown in for good measure! The painting above is 24" x 72" and is titled "Purple Haze". I don't want to give away the surprises before the show opens, but I may send along a few teasers between now and the 15th.

The opening at The Rooms was a great success- I was gobsmacked to find the Theatre packed for my artist's talk! The window next to the large painting below looks out to St. John's Harbour; the large painting was done from a photo of that view, leaving out the buildings, wharves, ships, Cabot Tower, oil tanks and anything else man-made, and bringing icebergs inside the narrows. The icebergs around the narrows were taken from late 19th and early 20th century photos in the Archives, so they are like the ghosts of icebergs past.

(work installed at The Rooms Provincial Gallery, photos Ellie Yonova, http://www.ellieyonova.com/)

One show opened, and I was back in the studio finishing work for another exhibition, this time at Christina Parker Gallery, http://www.christinaparkergallery.com/, opening May 15th. When I am painting, my verbal ability seems to go on holiday, so it's hard to paint and write about what I'm doing. I'll stick to the installation at The Rooms Art Gallery for now and add some of the new work over the next week.

another update...

I am still working away on the paintings for April, while my studio angel, Kitty, works on the 3-D iceberg. These two paintings are almost finished (they're both 4' x 6') and this week I will attack the 8' x 13' painting of the St. John's Harbour. I hope to start painting the 3-D piece next week, and I'm counting my minutes, since I can only work when the building is open.

Here is the current state of the sculpture...

Progress

All the pieces are slowly taking shape. Kitty Drake has been helping; the sculpture now has paper on it and the Narrows has most of its underpainting.

The mulberry paper, adhered with cooked wheat paste, drew up when it dried, pulling away from the indentations in the armature. It's like a drum-- tapping different spots produces a variety of sounds. Now we are experimenting with small areas to re-form the paper to the original shape.

It's all a learning experience!

Where has the time gone? I'm working at the Rooms these days, being artist-in-residence. Working around bad weather and a bad shoulder, but working, nevertheless. These pieces will be exhibited in the 4th floor gallery with a view of the Harbour in April.

The wonderful thing about working there is having the fabulous tech staff to help with, well, technical stuff, like building stretchers and armature. I'm working on a large painting, 8' x 13', that will hang on the wall beside the big window, several smaller paintings and a 3-D piece.

From my little plaster carving, the shape was scaled up and the armature base cut from a sheet of plywood. It's seen below with the somewhat photographically skewed sketch of what will be the 8' x 13' painting of the narrows.

The painting is no longer all white, and the armature is covered with 2 layers of paper.

Here's the current state of one of the 4' x 6' pieces. More to come!

on the table this week...

My studio has been filled with paper- Duncan printing my annual calendar page and the two of us madly assembling copies of Notes (toward a poem about play) by Don Austin, published by Running the Goat. The launch was last night, so today I can move on to painting. I'll be trying to finish a few more icebergs before I leave to visit my dad for the holidays.

The text is a prose poem about play, so I designed it to be read as a codex that unfolds into a game board. It has been four and a half years in the making, due to technical difficulties you don't want to know about. The text was set and letterpress printed at Running the Goat, the game board was screen printed at Living Planet in St. John's.

The boards are hinged in pairs, then the text pages are glued on. Then those boards are hinged in pairs, and the first sections of the game board are glued on. Last, the two four-board sections are hinged, and the last game board section glued on. Now that we have completed 20+ (the edition is 90), we have a system, and there's a little less paranoia about gluing something backwards or upside down. I still won't push it- better to stop when the focus wanes and not screw anything up!

If you want to know more about this project, see http://www.runningthegoat.com/notes.html