Peace - Illustration Friday

Winged Woman With Sturdy Shoes - this is my submission for Illustration Friday's peace theme.

Good-bye Winged Woman With Sturdy Shoes

The good news is that I sold this work yesterday; the sad news is that I shall miss it very much as it's one of my favourites and enjoyed a prominent spot in my studio - it greeted and inspired me every time I entered the room; better news is that I am filled with inspiration to immediately set paint brush to canvas and fill that now vacant wall space.

Illustration Friday - HELP

Here's a painting I did earlier this year and it's my entry for Illustration Friday's Theme - "HELP". This work is entitled Community Advocate With Sturdy Shoes. The community advocate works to HELP those in the community who need assistance in caring for themselves and their families - those who may not be able to navigate their own way through the often complicated twists and turns of governmental bureaucracy. This advocate stands firmly centred in her sturdy shoes, embracing her clients; the rainbow of colours illustrates the diverse backgrounds, cultures, ethnic groups, philosophies, and mental and physical abilities of those in need; the advocate's hair is spiky like a porcupine = she's on the defensive for her clients in these days of government cutbacks to social programs; the fence is taller than the figure = she feels hemmed in by the daunting challenges she faces; on her apron above the housetops there is a little bit of blue sky = hope. The clients and the houses are in series of 7 = the days of the week and therefore everyday. Let's celebrate those who are proactive in helping those within our own communities and the global community who need a little HELP to get by.

Limited Edition Prints Now Available

Limited edition prints of these paintings are now available in a variety of sizes on-line through Art for All of Us: http://artforallofus.com/roden.php

A portion of all sales goes to charity - when you purchase a print you choose from Art For Us All's list of charities (my charity of choice from the list is Habitat for Humanity).

Update

I've been busy preparing for Christmas and working on finishing up jewellery orders, so I have nothing new in the way of completed artwork to show you. I am working on paintings on wood for my South of France/Midi Canal show in February.

Village

Here's another recently completed 11.5" x 11.5" painting from the South of France series.

A new series of paintings

I spent most of September travelling along the Midi Canal in the south of France and as a result I've begun a series of paintings of the villages, churches, cathedrals, and castles from memories and photographs I took along the way. A church was the outstanding central structure in every village and town we visited. As you can see, my characteristic use of symbolism appears in this example (Montpellier, acrylic on canvas, 11 1/2" x 11 1/2"): 7 houses (including the house of God) represent the 7 days of the week, and therefore everyday; the houses of the community lean against each other for support, although their philosophical outlooks may differ (the various angles of doorways, windows, and rooftops).

Illustration Friday?

I haven't actually posted this to Illustration Friday... this week's theme is "clear"... which rhymes with "deer" ... but I think that's a bit of a stretch, don't you? I started this petite 12" x 24" work yesterday and finished it today.

Illustration Friday

This is an image from earlier this year - With Sturdy Shoes: Tippy-Toe Prayer - it's my contribution to Illustration Friday's latest theme: Smoke

My Home and Native Land

I collected this piece and other Memory & Narrative works from Place des Arts today as the month-long show is now over - it's the first day in several months that I have every piece of my artwork home again and egads! I don't know where I'm going to store it all. Here's a photo of the cover of My Home and Native Land and the table top papier mached using the paper cut from the pages of the book.

Taking a break from painting

This is the time of year when I take a break from from my regular art practice and focus on making beaded jewellery - I find working with these beautiful globules of colour, arranging and rearranging them into pleasing patterns is a form of meditation for me. This year I've enjoyed collecting beads on my European travels and my daughter in Thailand has sent some lovely beads my way as well. After a couple of months of beading I feel refreshed and ready to start painting again with renewed vigour, and the beads lie dormant for the next 10 months or so, with their lovely colours sparkling and winking at me from a corner in my studio.

Open Studio on Friday

I've cleaned up my studio and it is now presentable for visitors. I'm featuring works from three series: Community; With Sturdy Shoes; and Vessel. I've hung paintings on every available surface, positioned a few sculptures here and there, and have a table laid out with beaded jewellery works. Hope to see you Friday!

Memory & Narrative

This is a detail from "My Home and Native Land", the altered book component of my contribution to this exhibition with Leap Visual Artist Collective. I carved through 2500 pages of Canada's history and Canadian definitions in The Canadian Encyclopedia to create and define my "home" as truly Canadian.

The show has been hung and is ready to be viewed during the month of October in the Atrium Gallery at Place des Arts, 1120 Brunette Avenue, Coquitlam, BC. The opening reception is Thursday, October 5th, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.

I have been involved with this collective of talented thought provoking artists for 7 years or so and am very excited to be once again participating in one of our yearly theme-related shows.

Woman Before A Mirror, mixed media on 3 canvases, 66" x 54"

These panels are one component of the Woman Before A Mirror work. "Slip", explained below earlier in the month, is the second component.

www.placedesarts.ca

It's been a busy 10 hour/day paintfest every day this week...

This is a detail shot of the harlequin pattern.








I took a break from the studio this afternoon to hang the With Sturdy Shoes show at Gallery North in Delta.

Thank goodness I'm not serving dinner tonight or tomorrow

because there's no way I'm moving these canvases until I finish adhering text clipped from magazines to every pale diamond. I've been cutting up magazines over the past several years and filing away letters and words for future undertakings - this work has seriously diminished my collection of adjectives. If you have any old magazines - I can put them to good use (eventually).

Layer 2 completed

Today I finished the second layer of paint in nearly all areas and now I'm working on the third layer (white). I painted for 12 hours yesterday and today I'm feeling it in my arm and shoulder, but I'm on a roll and don't want to stop!






Here's a detail photo - the numbers in the "white" diamonds acknowledge the 28-day cycle that is one of the patterns that inform a woman's life.

The underpainting is finished

I finished the underpainting and worked on the second layer yesterday, adding black and white numbers cut from magazines.

The underpainting

Last night I continued to work on the underpainting for the 3-way-mirror-like canvas for Girl Before A Mirror. It's been my experience that the uglier the underpainting the better the finished painting: as you can see, this one's shaping up to be a real beauty.

It's begun

Those big canvases are filling up quickly with images larger than life ...

On the art of recycling ...

I am a staunch supporter of recycling and have created many works of art incorporating recycled elements. I have even recycled my own recycled-object-filled artworks and here I am doing it once again.

The work on the far right of the photo is made from a dressmaker's mannequin wearing a paper dress that has been adorned with tiny objects. The piece is entitled 'Slip' and is a self portrait I created a few years ago for a collaborative work created with Leap Visual Artists called 'Circle of Journeys'. The paper I used to create the dress came from my calendar, journal, artist statements, contracts, letters, prescriptions, newspapers, recipe and greeting cards, paintings, sketches, children's homework assignments, etc. and also from photographs of my family, historical images from magazines, books, and postcards, and a few pieces were made from articles of clothing belonging to myself, my children, and my grandmother. The papers and fabrics were cut into diamond shapes and stitched together in a harlequin pattern. The machine stitching was then enhanced with hand stitched embroidery, and where each corner of the diamond shapes meet, I used needle and thread to attach a tiny object from the drawers, floors, cupboards, pickle jars, beautiful but cracked teacups, and other storage areas of my home/life.

I used the harlequin pattern to symbolize myself as the clown in my life story; the patchwork and stitching to symbolize my traditional role as a homemaker/mother/salvager; the embroidery symbolizes my traditional role of the family member responsible for "making nice" and for attempts to improve or "pretty up" the banality of routine household life; the flotsam at intersecting points represents the infinite number of tiny but important decisions mothers make on a daily basis with regards to "do I keep this, toss it, store it for future use/reference or for sentimental reasons, for just in case or just because?"

Needless to say, Slip was created by means of a laborious process and was truly a labour of love/insanity, and as it says a lot about who I am and where I've come from, I am only too delighted to be recycling for forthcoming artistic efforts.

Slip will reappear as an element in a new work I'm creating - 'Girl Before a Mirror' (title and concept borrowed from Picasso). This work will be exhibited in October at Place des Artes in Coquitlam in Leap Visual Artists Collective's Memory & Narrative exhibition, and again in February at the Firehall Centre for the Arts as part of my solo exhibition 'After Picasso'.

I've just finished stretching and priming the three tall panels in the photo - they will be hinged to represent a 3 way mirror and I'm rubbing my hands together with the excitement and challenge of painting upon them a distorted reverse image of Slip.



I'll keep you posted as to the progress I make over the next 3 weeks.

An evolving work of art...

I have been grandly rewarded for my past month of intensive TLC in the garden. The incredibly talented Mother Nature and I (of much lesser talent) have been collaborating on the evolving work of art that is my garden. Yesterday my heart sang when I saw these tiny exquisite blooms in all their delicate finery and amazing detail and the original meaning of that now sadly diminished word rang true - AWESOME!

Preparing my altered book for the upcoming Memory & Narrative show with Leap Visual Artists Collective

Here I've made it to page 998 of 2500 of the book I'm altering for a show in October (my hand hurts!). There are 9 artists in the group: me, Roxsanne, Frances, Liz, Anne, Laurel, Jeannine, Marcia, and Andrea (our newest member - wooo-hooo Andrea!) Most of us have been exhibiting work together for several years. We usually embark upon one major project a year where we agree upon a theme and each create a few works for it or together create a gallery installation. It's an exciting group to work with as we're all game for a challenge - and challenge ourselves we do! - and we each bring something fresh to the collective with our varying backgrounds, interests, mediums, and art practices.

For Memory & Narrative, each artist is altering an existing book to make it her own and is also creating two to three other works. The show will run for the entire month of October at Place des Artes in Coquitlam.

A sign ...

I received a sign from the powers that be to inform me I've been absent from my studio for far too long - it was a spider web stretched across my easel! In the meantime my garden is looking lovely, however, clearly it is time for me to get back to work in the studio.

Detail Photos - With Sturdy Shoes: Hope

The figure's tresses form robins (new beginnings, experience, wisdom,) - 7 to the left (the past) and 7 to the right (the future); in her arms she cradles 7 houses (her community) while a fence holds an unsettled world at bay.


Upon the figure's apron a bluebird offers a berry (sustenance, advice) from its nest of 21 leaves (the days of the female cycle ripe with the possibilities of new life/beginnings).

New Sturdy Shoes work for my September show

Click on the link to Beadworks by Barbara (below on the right) to see my latest beadwork creations

Ta-Da!

I finished it at 7:00 p.m. tonight. The lower leaves will be completed one at a time as donors to Semiahmoo Family Place have their names and logos added to them.

Nearly finished

Getting closer

Today I sanded, primed, and painted over the repairs; worked on the larger figures and gave a third and final coat to the rooftops and doors. There are 2 more figures to be painted on the far right side.

Back to the mural

After a week's break, it's mural time again.
Today was the last day for working on scaffolding - hurray! I plan to have the mural completed by the end of this week.

A little more colour ...

We're working around the area that needs repair where the electrical outlets and conduit were removed.

A little more detail...

It's coming along nicely ...

Mural project for Semiahmoo Family Place

Here's my trusty assistant ready to get started on painting the foreground of the mural we started yesterday.

Thank you for attending last night's opening

Thank you to everyone who travelled so far on a miserable rainy night to view With Sturdy Shoes in Tsawwassen. I worked on this series for 9 months and so last night was very akin to sharing with all of you my newly produced 'baby'. I don't have the words to express how much I appreciate your support.

I've begun work today on a painting for the 'After Picasso' exhibition slated for February 2007, and I'll be posting images of those paintings as they are produced.

Enjoy your weekend!

Another gallery view ...

Winged Mother With Sturdy Shoes #6

Here's the last work I finished for the show.

For those of you living in Delta, look for me on Arts 'Round Town, DCTV Channel 4, 9:30 p.m. Wednesdays and 10:30 p.m. Fridays until the end of June; Patti McGregor asks me to explain my use of symbolism in the With Sturdy Shoes series, and I do my best not to stutter or bumble too much through the interview.

Here's a little bit of the show ...

With Sturdy Shoes at the Tsawwassen Arts Centre

With Sturdy Shoes opens today at the Tsawwassen Art Centre

I spent the afternoon hanging 20 paintings at the Tsawwassen Art Centre and, if I do say so myself, the show looks mighty fine.

I had more than enough works to fill the space, so the painting above with the cut out floating figure (one of my personal favourites) had to be left out.

The Artist Reception for the show is next Thursday night, June 8th, from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. - feel free to bring your friends.

Recently completed ...

With Sturdy Shoes: The Volunteer
acrylic on canvas
30" x 24"

I've reached the 20 painting goal!

Here's the latest from my easel.
Community Volunteer With Sturdy Shoes
40" x 30"

Winged Mother With Sturdy Shoes #5: A Moment to Breathe

Here's a detail from the painting I finished today - this work was begun months ago and then set aside as I worked on larger paintings. It is painted on a small wooden cradle panel with the painting continuing over the edges onto the four sides. The figure is cut out of wood so that she appears to be floating above the landscape. Like Winged Mother #3, this figure is anchored to her house by her hair.