One of the many hats I'm wearing these days is that of an Art Instructor. I run after-school programs for elementary school kids in East Vancouver. We've been doing painting and drawing, and at one school, all of the kids in the beginner program from last fall signed up for an advanced program from January to March Break.
I love working with these kids, and I feel especially lucky to have a group for a second time around, because we know each other a bit better. Today we made collages, and i taught them how to decoupage paper by gluing the paper down and then also glazing over the paper. Some of them even added some paint and 3-D effects. I've got some amazing artists in this group, and some who, although they may not render objects perfectly (i say who wants to???), have an amazing sense of colour and composition that they are not even aware of. I've enjoyed pushing some of them out of their comfort zones, like today's collages, or a few weeks ago painting to different music styles with a live musician in the room and using toothbrushes, nail brushes, sponges, scouring pads and bubble wrap as experimental "paintbrushes". I've seen these kids come up with ideas that even I never thought of!
Today, i nearly died when they just magically started cleaning up 20 minutes before the end of the program. Normally i have to get their attention and give lots of warnings and repeatedly ask them to stop painting. Today, they just kind of floated into cleanup mode and the only thing I had to facilitate was the cleanup of the scraps of paper that were all over the floor, which is unusual since we normally paint.
So, i guess what I'm trying to say is that i feel grateful to be given the opportunity to work with and learn from these wonderful little artists, and I guess it would be kind of nice if they learned something from me, too.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
New Video - Meditation 1.
I've started to make cheap little films to do something creative when I'm not painting. They are mostly incomplete thoughts, a small sensory indulgence, just part of the overall creative process.
This first video was done after spending a day at the Aquarium. THis is what happens when you spend the morning with your face pasted to the side of a giant fish tank, listening to Philip Glass. A little something to lower your heart and breathing rates.
Meditation 1.
This first video was done after spending a day at the Aquarium. THis is what happens when you spend the morning with your face pasted to the side of a giant fish tank, listening to Philip Glass. A little something to lower your heart and breathing rates.
Meditation 1.
Untitled from Jenn Skillen on Vimeo.
Monday, February 14, 2011
New (ish) works from the tiny studio (apartment)
Thought you might want to see what i've been working on through the fall and winter.
I don't know if this is finished or not. It's a new size i started working with this winter, small, just 14 inches square. I decided to post it and see what people thought (including myself). In the beginning of my work with encaustic, i was a little insulted when someone said, "well, it smells like honey, so it must be about bees". Um, i don't think Jasper Johns was talking about bees, so why does it have to be about bees? Since then i have come to understand a little better the medium that i'm working with, and have realized that, on some level, it actually IS about bees. I recently encountered a beeswax shortage which led me to research Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and the disppearance of thousands of honeybees in North America in the past few years. If the bees aren't working, i'm not working. It affects me. And i am a drop in the bucket compared to what this means in the grand scheme of things. I know this. So i decided to make a piece that was actually ABOUT bees. And yes, it smells like bees, so it MUST be about bees.
This piece is finished but untitled, another piece about the strangeness of the Faro mine area in the Yukon. This was my first attempt to integrate found objects into a colour encaustic piece, and i'm still unsure of how successful this was.
Resilience , the finished piece that was shown in progress in a previous entry. I worked on this through the end of the summer into the fall, and it was sold in Toronto in October. Encaustic with guitar strings, found objects and soil on panel.
I don't know if this is finished or not. It's a new size i started working with this winter, small, just 14 inches square. I decided to post it and see what people thought (including myself). In the beginning of my work with encaustic, i was a little insulted when someone said, "well, it smells like honey, so it must be about bees". Um, i don't think Jasper Johns was talking about bees, so why does it have to be about bees? Since then i have come to understand a little better the medium that i'm working with, and have realized that, on some level, it actually IS about bees. I recently encountered a beeswax shortage which led me to research Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and the disppearance of thousands of honeybees in North America in the past few years. If the bees aren't working, i'm not working. It affects me. And i am a drop in the bucket compared to what this means in the grand scheme of things. I know this. So i decided to make a piece that was actually ABOUT bees. And yes, it smells like bees, so it MUST be about bees.
This piece is finished but untitled, another piece about the strangeness of the Faro mine area in the Yukon. This was my first attempt to integrate found objects into a colour encaustic piece, and i'm still unsure of how successful this was.
Resilience , the finished piece that was shown in progress in a previous entry. I worked on this through the end of the summer into the fall, and it was sold in Toronto in October. Encaustic with guitar strings, found objects and soil on panel.
What's in my pocket?
The contents of my right coat pocket as of today, collected between approx Dec 2010 and now. This is where the magic happens.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Finally!
I've been quiet. In the post-graduation haze i've traveled across Canada, worked a bunch of Nursing shifts and scrambled to look for that mythical art-related job. In the midst of exploring "what's next" i almost forgot why i did this all in the first place: TO MAKE ART. So, I set up a space in my house that, while not ideal (i live in a studio apartment and as i type this i'm wearing a respirator because the wax pot is heating up), seems like the perfect little spot to get creating. So here's what i'm working on currently.
I'm exploring themes of resilience, continuity and chance. In this piece i'm working with guitar strings (man, sometimes they just do what they want!), dirt and clear encaustic medium. You can't see it in this photo, but some of the strings give up a little halo of colour when heated up in the wax, so i haven't added any colour to this piece, i'm going to see what transpires.
Oh, and it feels good to be making art again.
I'm exploring themes of resilience, continuity and chance. In this piece i'm working with guitar strings (man, sometimes they just do what they want!), dirt and clear encaustic medium. You can't see it in this photo, but some of the strings give up a little halo of colour when heated up in the wax, so i haven't added any colour to this piece, i'm going to see what transpires.
Oh, and it feels good to be making art again.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
From the archives...
Materiality, 2009, oil on canvas
Milk, 2009, oil on canvas
I decided to post these paintings even though they are about a year old. I have been thinking a lot about the past year, and my struggle with painting after these were completed. I became frustrated with and pretty much gave up oil painting, and started working in encaustic in the fall. I am not sure what the future holds, but that's the best part, not knowing what's going to happen and just going for it :)
Milk, 2009, oil on canvas
I decided to post these paintings even though they are about a year old. I have been thinking a lot about the past year, and my struggle with painting after these were completed. I became frustrated with and pretty much gave up oil painting, and started working in encaustic in the fall. I am not sure what the future holds, but that's the best part, not knowing what's going to happen and just going for it :)
Monday, May 3, 2010
Transformation.
Well, after 4 years of hard work and extreme life changes, I received my BFA on the weekend. And i can honestly say that after over 20 years of painting and all this education, i am only just beginning to understand where my work is going and what it is about. Something i've begun to think about a lot lately is the word "transformation". It can mean so many things, from the transformation of myself over the past four years, to the transformation of trash into art, to the transformation of shiny things into a murder of crows. We are constantly in flux, we never stop changing, and those of us who can truly give in to that will be able to begin to see the true beauty in life. I used to think that permanence was where it was at. I learned that from my parents, and i suppose that it's just the way they were brought up, it doesn't mean it's wrong, it's just different now i guess. Now i am beginning to understand that permanence is not all it's cracked up to be, we need to shift and change and move with the wind. And that's what life is about, as is my piece "Migraton" which i am here with on opening night of the ECU Grad Show.
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