Winter Gift Gallery in Deep Cove opens this week!

I will have some work in the Seymour Art Gallery's Winter Gift Gallery in Deep Cove, happening now through December 24th. Come by the gallery this Sunday for some homemade baking and to meet the artists from 2-4pm.  The gallery has just about everything you need for Christmas gift shopping, including handmade books, cards, small to medium-sized paintings, felted ornaments, all handmade by local artists!

http://www.seymourartgallery.com/2016/06/14/november-23-december-24-2016/

Killarney Community Art Show and Vancouver Draw Down

Two great art events are happening this weekend!  I will be taking part in the Killarney Community Art Show tonight from 6-8PM and the Vancouver Draw Down tomorrow from 11AM to 1PM.  Both events take place at Killarney Community Centre.

The Vancouver Draw Down is a city-wide event.  Check out the website for a workshop near you!!! I encourage you to check out The Network at Mount Pleasant CC,  Draw a Dragon's Tale at Hillcrest CC, or visit me at Killarney CC for some Mad Lib drawings.  We'll be pulling words from boxes and making up stories and drawings about them!    Take part and take pictures!  Post to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to flood the Draw Down page with photos!  Tag your photos: @VanDrawDown #DrawDown #DailyDrawing.

Vancouver Draw Down 2015

Once again I'll be participating in the Vancouver Draw Down at Killarney Community Centre, and it's just one week from today!

Check out the Vancouver Draw Down website, Facebook page or Twitter feed @vandrawdown  for details.

I'll be at Killarney CC doing some crazy mad lib drawings.  Have you ever seen a cat riding a bike?  Birds playing hockey?  A backpack playing tennis?  Well, I have, and you can see something just as crazy if you come to KCC on June 20 from 11AM to 1PM.

Vancouver Draw Down TODAY!!

I am surrounded by squares and scraps of fabrics in various colours and have been up late the past few nights cutting and pinning fabric to boards in preparation for today's Draw Down event at Killarney Community Centre.  I'm up early, partly to finish up some last-minute preparations, and partly out of sheer excitement!

I will be set up in the lobby of Killarney from 10:30 to 12:30 today, with a group of volunteers from the sewing club and a quilter/artist friend to assist the people of Killarney (and anyone else who ventures into the neighbourhood) create a "community quilt".   Participants will be given a square of fabric and invited to make a drawing of their family, or a symbol of what "family" means to them.  Then, the squares will be assembled by sewers into blocks and made into a quilt top, right there on the spot!

I'm hoping that this will be a real "happening"!  Come on out and check out the action!

http://www.vancouverdrawdown.com/community-quilt-killarney-community-centre.html

Vancouver Draw Down is coming!!!

It's almost time to get out and draw!  If you're in the Greater Vancouver Area, then the only problem you're going to have on June 14 is deciding WHICH amazing drawing workshop you're going to participate in!  I'm excited to be participating in this project for the first time!

Now in its 5th year, the Vancouver Draw Down  is a city-wide day of drawing that celebrates creativity and challenges commonplace ideas about what drawing is and what it can do. Reconnect with the power and pleasure of making your mark at over 45 FREE drawing workshops on Saturday, June 14.

Come help me make a community quilt at Killarney Community Centre, or visit the Cave of Wonders with my friend Katherine Nielsen at Hillcrest!  Do one, or come up with a game plan that lets you hit up several events! Visit vancouverdrawdown.com for workshop details.

Check out the latest via social media:
facebook.com/VanDrawDown
twitter.com/VanDrawDown
instagram.com/VanDrawDown

Solo Show Held Over, and Artist Talk scheduled!

Great news!  My solo show in the Gallery at White Rock Community Centre has been held over and will be up until October 15th, 2013!  I am scheduled to give an Artist Talk at the gallery on September 25th at 7p.m.  The gallery will be open from 7pm to 8:30 p.m., with light refreshments and music.  I'll be talking about my process and inspiration, and then sticking around to talk informally and answer any questions about the artwork.
Please register for the event by searching for course # 25726 at https://webreg.whiterockcity.ca/Activities/ActivitiesAdvSearch.asp

Here's a link to the event on Facebook, which includes a map to the gallery.

Solo Show Opens Tomorrow!

My solo show is opening tomorrow afternoon, Saturday July 27th in White Rock.  There will be an opening reception from 2 to 4 pm with refreshments and treats.  I will be on hand to answer any questions about the artwork and to give a short Artist Talk.  Details are in the poster above.

Working with Wax

I was in the studio today after not being in for a while.  It felt good to be working again, and I'm getting a rush of creative energy which is well-timed (whew!) as I have a solo show coming up and need some new work.  I started work again on a project that I began in my final year of art school, three years ago, and I have to say, I'm seeing a huge difference in how I am approaching this work now after spending the last 3 years working mostly in colourless wax and getting to know how the wax behaves when heated, melted and manipulated.  It's very different coming back to an older project when you have a much better handle on the materials.  More on this later I guess, hopefully with photos.

Solo Show News

I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I will have some recent work in my first solo show this summer in White Rock, B.C. from July 27 to August 23.   I am working hard in the studio to create some new encaustic paintings.  Some of them will be very tiny and colourful, and I've also got some ideas on the go for some larger showcase pieces with found objects embedded in them.

Local News - Art supplies

For those of you are local, you might be excited to hear that the beloved Ruby Dog Art House is making a temporary comeback!  They will be opening a pop-up store, not far from the original location of their store on Main Street. Here are the deets:

4570 Main St., between 29th and 30th, just one block north of the original RubyDog's. The first day of business is Friday, from 11:00 to 6:00, but the official Grand Opening is Saturday, February 16th. 
Hours of operation: 
Monday: Closed
Tuesday/Wednesday: 11:00 to 6:00
Thursday: 11:00 to 8:00
Friday: 11:00 to 6:00
Saturday; 10:00 to 6:00 (except this Saturday, when we'll stay open until 8:00)
Sunday: 12:00 to 5:00
Last day of business: Sunday, March 31st.

There will be lots of ephemera, bits and bobs and other great art supplies, as well as handmade things by some local artists and designers:

Giving Gifts:  www.givinggifts.ca   (earth friendly gifts)

Honeywild:  www.honeywild.net    (jewellery)

What The Frame:  www.whattheframe.ca  (very cool jewellery storage)

OnceTwice Design Antiques:  www.oncetwice.ca  (mid-century collectibles)

A Farmer's Daughter:   www.etsy.com/shop/afarmersdaughter  (jewellery)

Little Moso: www.littlemoso.com (babies and kids clothes handmade from bamboo fabric)

Daria's Hats:  Handmade hats, bags and fabric pins

Clare's Collectibles:  Collectible purses

 

Check out samples of what you might find in the store here at their Etsy store!  I made many trips to Ruby Dog while i was at Emily Carr University, for inspiration and art supplies, and returned again as an art instructor looking for interesting things to use in collages. I hope you have some time to check it out and support a local entrepreneur and some local artists.

DisCovery: Earth at Seymour Gallery

Today i am off to Deep Cove to drop off my encaustic piece, Disruption (the second painting made by this name) for the DisCovery show, whose theme this year is Earth.

The piece is part of a series that I have been working on for almost three years, and captures my reaction to seeing a former mining site in the Yukon that is in the process of being reclaimed.

DisCovery: Earth runs from January 8 to February 2, 2013.
Opening reception Tuesday January 8, 7-9 pm.

Admission to the gallery and the reception is free.

Ensemble Show 2012

I'm pleased to announce that three of my new encaustic pieces were accepted into the Maple Ridge ACT Gallery's Ensemble show.  This is my second year having work in the show, which opens today (opening reception from 2-4pm) and runs until December 20th.  If you're going to be in the Maple Ridge area, swing by and check it out.  Admission to the gallery is free (and so is the reception!).

Open Studio This Weekend, October 6th!

Well, i finally decided to make a reappearance here, and in my studio as well after taking the summer off to play in the sun and work on music and other stuff.  Now it's time to concentrate on art again, and finish some encaustic pieces I've been working on for a while.

I'll be opening the doors of my studio this Saturday, Oct 6 from noon until 4 or 5 pm.

You can find the details here.

Come on out and visit me, and tell your friends to come, too!  Check out the "this month's studios" tab to see who else is participating and make a day of it!

I might even have cookies, and perhaps some live music courtesy of the Broken Folk Factory and maybe even myself!

Open Studio this weekend!!

I'll be participating in an Open Studio this Saturday, March 3 from noon to 5pm as part of the First Saturday collective.  Come visit me at Eek Studio  - 1888 Main St. at 2nd Avenue in Vancouver where I'll be visiting Carlyn Yandle and co-hosting.  Come check out our paintings, plus see us at work on projects including the Social Network sculpture/installation, which you can hop on to!

For more information on us and other artists participating:
http://firstsaturday.weebly.com/

Come check out and contribute to the Social Network!   http://socialart.weebly.com/index.html

Laying the groundwork...

There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there's only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.
-Wayne Dyer

 The above quote was posted on the Facebook page of a business i follow this morning... I thought it was quite timely as I've been struggling for a while with the motivation and resolve to do just that - spend time on the 'business' end of things, and give credence to my art as a viable business option.  It's only just this week that I've been able to actually spend a chunk of time working on things like revamping the website by adding tons of photos and creating a Facebook 'page' for myself as an artist.  I also finally got up the nerve to start making some calls and emails and inquiries this week to try to start teaching art again.  I have really missed it these past many months, and despite some logistic snags (the biggest of which being the teachers are on Job Action and it makes a lot of extracurricular stuff difficult), I'm going in now with the attitude that I'm going to be able to do this.  Just gather the information together and put myself out there.

 It took me a long time to muster up the courage to quit what I was doing and go to art school, and then when i graduated, I spent a long time looking for the confidence to get myself 'out there'.  The above quote rings so true for me right now, i continuously teeter on the brink of giving up and going back to my 'other' job full-time.  Recently i had a conversation with an artist friend of mine who has been practicing in her studio for over a year.  I was inspired by her to do the same, even though it took me a while to get going.  And she started wondering out loud about giving up, asking how long she should keep doing this and saying that she felt "lost'.  I surprised myself when my response came.  "When you are lost in the woods, what do you do?"  And the answer is one that we all know.  Stay where you are, and someone will find you.

Keep it up, don't lose hope and continue to love what you do.

 

Updated Pages!

I've updated my pages along the right side of this page, and added some Exhibitions photos.

More updates to come as I work on adding more work to the Gallery.

Press Coverage and Show Opening

The Seymour Art Gallery was packed to the brim on January 10th for the opening of "Water", the 2012 Discovery show.  It was wonderful to see so many people come out to the show, including some wonderful friends.  The show got some coverage in the North Shore Outlook, online and in print.

Here I am with my piece, Solitude, which is kind of a love letter to the ocean, reflecting human resilience and the feelings elicited by being near water.

Upcoming Show

My latest painting, Solitude will be part of the upcoming show at Seymour Art Gallery in Deep Cove, BC.  The Theme of this year's Discovery 2012 Emerging Artist show is "water", and the exhibition showcases work by emerging local artists from the Lower Mainland.
http://www.seymourartgallery.com/next_show.php

There will be an opening reception on January 10, 2012 from 7pm to 10 pm, and the show runs until February 4.

"Ensemble" at the Maple Ridge ACT

I'll be heading out to Maple Ridge today to attend the opening of the "Ensemble" show at the ACT.  The show features work by local artists including myself and my friend Katherine Nielsen.  The works were selected as series or "ensembles" as they have some unifying feature.  Katherine's small works on cigarette foil feature images of her father and really should be seen in person.  Small works from my Resilience series and my Faro series are on display in the show until December 18.

Edited to add a photo of one of my series right next to my friend's!

White Rock Best of 2011

I went to the White Rock gallery to pick up my painting today as yesterday was the last day of the "Best of 2011" show... and to my utter shock and delight there was a First Prize ribbon hung next to my painting.  With my name on it.

Wave is 20 by 34 inches, encaustic (beeswax) with guitar strings embedded in it.  With regards to the title, think more than just water.  Think about the materials at work here.  As with other work in the "Resilience" series (in progress since last October), the piece speaks to human resiliency through the materials in the piece.  What holds us in place?  Where is our breaking point? How do our actions affect our environment?

The "Best Of" show showcased local artists who placed 1st, 2nd or 3rd in any of the shows in White Rock throughout the past year and was by invitation.