Art Chair Auction

There is an artistic group called Katalyst on facebook. A member, Chad Pratch, in an artist with quite the conceptual eye. He had a show in Kelowna Art Gallery involving chairs and when his installation came down, there were over a 1000 chairs and he had a brain wave ... 


... an Art Chair Auction at the Volcanic Winery, West Kelowna, BC.

I’m taking down my show at the Kelowna Art Gallery where all my chairs are destined for the trash. The chairs come down Monday and are going to be stored at Lois Lane. So they will be very easy to access. Where you come is that you pick out a chair from the lot and revamp it into an art piece for an Art Auction. So whatever you can think of doing with the tattered chair (fixing the Chair or not and changing the chair into something else) SOME TIME THIS WEEK YOU NEED TO PICK A CHAIR OUT FROM THE LOT AT LOIS LANE! From there you have until December 16th to make an art piece for the art auction where you can sell the work. Whatever the chair goes for is what you get. So come pick out a chair and get to work! 

The Auction will be a silent auction where people can place bids by the work. The event will be held at Volcanic Winery in West Kelowna on December 16th. 


http://www.facebook.com/events/147774931997452/?context=create


This was sent to 15 artists, including me, and I thought it would be fun and something new to play with. I set out with so many ideas that I was driving myself crazy. Then I got the chair that my niece had picked out for me.  It was traditionally shaped and badly marked up.  Shifting focus from any prior ideas, I did not know the end from the beginning. Intuiting and painting along an impressionistic path, I finished by depicting a favorite symbol, the wild goose, as it is the celtic symbol for the Holy Spirit. All in all, a few evenings and it was done. Fun times. 


The auction went alright considering the low attendance as there was little time to get the word out. Another auction has been set for February giving advertising and promotion time to be more effective. 


It was fun to be in the company of artists and to enjoy the ideas all came up with. A few caused smiles, some laughs, some admiration because it was so, so well done. And, I don't remember who thought it, but an 'invisible chair' was set up with a $200 price. Someone bid on it! The joke was that it was going to be paid with an invisible credit card, or cheque with invisible ink from an invisible bank account. Hah! You had to be there. :)

A Painting called 'In The Rain'

Many years ago, more than 25, I came across photographs of Europe. I think it was the National Geographic. Tall buildings and narrow streets with people walking in the rain. The poetry of the moment struck me then and I quickly roughed out a sketch with a black felt pen on paper.


When I moved into my condo 8 years ago I came across the drawing and contemplated what I could do with it. Having some polaroid sx 70 film around I photographed my drawing outside while the color of light was blue. What resulted was a blue toned drawing on an emulsion and I 'manipulated' it with a toothpick and the back of a brush, pressing hard to get a monet effect.  Then it was put to the side as another idea took my attention.

A couple years passed and I came across the drawing again. This time I wanted to do a highly colorized, painted version. Wanting a heavy texture I took an 8x24 canvas and glued a lot of torn tissue paper with acrylic medium in successive layers. When dry I sketched out the drawing and painted in several layers in acrylic to get the colors to surprise by coming through the layers here and there. I kept seeing red and green/turquoise and muted yellow and played along with it. Put this aside until further notice.

A few months ago I picked it up again and this time 'saw' it covered in epoxy. Adding india inks to intensify some of the colors, I layered a few coats of epoxy as the texture was pretty heavy and the final flood coat of epoxy leveled the finish. Here is the final result.

Using Stencils

Victoria Larsen creates beautiful stencils. I was blessed to have won one, an Aspen tree stencil, in an art contest in December.  Working with dimensionality in a stencil is somewhat of a learning curve but adapted to it and used it as a springboard for creating my own tree. The stencil comes with about 4 or five different leaf motifs, one motif of thin branches, as well as two trunks, one thin and one thick. All this fitting into 2 16x20 stencils. So, with the choices inherent in it, you can create any size tree you want, by twisting the designs this way and that. By skipping here and there and coming back to the places where you missed, after the initial branches and leaves dry.  



I really wanted to do an 8'x5' image of a forest of Aspen Trees and prepared triptic canvasses for this. This idea was put aside as, in emotional and spiritual terms, I kept thinking/seeing in my mind's eye, a plant firmly rooted and ready to grow, rain and sun coming down, speaking of life and propelling me forward. The aspen tree stencil thus was adapted to configure my plant. 


I love these stencils because you are still in control of creating whatever you want out of it. And while it is drying you can flatten it out, make it bigger, smaller, nudge it to where you want, delete sections, paint it, add more texture, carve it, etc. It is another tool in your arsenal to create.


This painting is heavily textured throughout, the background built up with layers of epoxy, marble dust, acrylic, mica flakes, silver and irridescent paint on canvas. The branches, roots and leaves were created with Durabond 90 with a pinch of marble dust and a half cup of some epoxy dust thrown in. (I had saved the dust from when I've sanded down epoxy in a prior image). Yeah, I figured it would create a new polymer blend.  A pinch of this, a pinch of that is fun ... :) 

This image shown is before the final glaze of epoxy because I wanted to show you the texture without the shiny glare. The final flood of epoxy will smooth everything out and the colors will pop.


www.victorialarsen.com

Hand Painted Parson Chairs and a Resurfaced Pine Table

There was a great deal on a pine table a few years ago that I couldn't pass up. Ditto some Parsons Dining Chairs I saw in a second hand shop. The chairs I knew to be valued at over $200.00 each as I'd seen them in magazines. And they were going for only $18.00 a piece! I bought the six they had. They were a linen cream color in dire need of cleaning. I washed them with bleach but unfortunately some dirt stains did not come out. The legs were cloth covered and were the most marked with dirt. So I ripped the fabric off the legs and underneath was rough looking wood that looked like pine. I left it as is for it went with the pine table. Then painted white stripes on only the front part of each chair. Lived with that for a couple of years.

Because I use this table in the kitchen frequently to work on art, and everything else, it has taken quite a beating. Lately I looked at it with new eyes and realized I wanted to have a tabletop that would wear well and look great for when clients come when I teach art and photography. So I resurfaced it with a cementitious product called aurastone. It binds to anything. Then I layered color upon color using acrylic and biocolor. While wet I sprinkled a lot of sparkles on it, clear, green and metallic, as well as pearlescence. When dry I taped all around underneath the table and also covered the iron bars that hold up the table inserts. This is vital as epoxy runs everywhere and it is deadly if you don't protect your floors, your walls, your hands, your eyes. The two inserts for the table that I've got were done on a plastic covered countertop and lifted so the epoxy can drip off the edges. It dried overnight and the following morning there was another pour of the epoxy. This made for a surface that will be very durable, and I love that you can 'see' into it and get the sparkles from different angles. Right now I like it shiny. Down the way, when there are any scratches on it, I'll probably just hone it down, sanding it to a matte finish. I love it that way too and it won't show scratches. But right now, shiny it is. Note: the dried epoxy drips must be sanded down on the underside of the table with a power sander or grinder so that the edges are smooth. Don't want people to bump their knees into those drips as they can be sharp.

The chairs were looking kinda mangy. But they are incredibly comfortable and solid, so they are worth saving. Recovering them in fresh fabric was not the direction where inspiration flowed.  Having lots of paint here right now, inspiration struck so off I went. From the first dab I was committed to complete it. All the while wondering, as it went through ugly stages, 'OMG what have I done?'.  The paint used was fluid acrylic and biocolor with fabric medium added. It was all done freehand, deliberately using inundating lines to impart an organic feel, with the nubbly texture of the linen coming through. This needed a couple of coats as the colors sunk in and became too light. Then a damp cotton cloth was used with a steam iron on the chair to heat set for durability so that it can withstand dry cleaning, or scrubbing. This is finished off with a spray of fabric guard. The chairs can be recovered later when I tire of this.

The legs were first painted in white primer with holes filled. And will be painted with white satin melamine paint later, as soon as the weather permits, so as to not have the paint fumes inside the condo.

Now, having done all this, I can say that some things can be done to make the process shorter, easier, or even for a different style. I think next time I'll try using a metal ruler with laundry markers to mark permanent lines where I want them. And then the lines can be filled with color. The straight lines will be more sophisticated than hand drawn so it may be a good thing for a wing chair that I can see done in this manner and it may just work. :) Adding black lines, then painting in with yellow on the blue will make it green, and adding white on some of the green will cool it lighter to an aqua. I must show this a bit later when I get to it.

There are permanent markers that may change color over time, but that may not matter. After all, if a black changes to a deep maroon, it may just be fabulous. But if you want to have colors that do not shift then fabric dyes, waterproof india inks and acrylic paints with fabric medium, are the way to go.

A disclaimer ... see sidebar...

Impressionistic Bedroom Walls

Home decor continues to fascinate me. I am so wired to create order and beauty in my surroundings.  And I can't leave well enough alone. 


This bedroom had walls that were cream colored and the whole ambience was asthetically peaceful, breezy, light on light. Like a tropical room complete with mosquito netting over the bed. The time came for a change and a sense settled in me as to what direction to go. So got some latex paint and some rags and mostly my hands, and got at it to create an impressionistic ambience. Almost like stepping into an Old World Monet. 

The rule is, most of the time, to do dark over light. But I (mostly) prefer to do light over dark... it goes cloudy and cool, so you warm it up. With just three or four colors you can make it look like so many as the depth is amazing. It is more 'impressionistic' whereas the dark over light is more 'renaissance'.

This wall was created by starting with a dark olive that looked like something unmentionable :). I wanted light and airy and impressionistic but I needed an interesting dark color to come through all the successive light layers. Starting with the olive and lightening it with white and cream created a bluish tinge. Layered next a brick color and yellow ochre on that olive, then used lighter versions of both with the addition of cream paint and white to successive layers. Adding a touch of lightened magenta paint here and there completed the work.

The image on the wall is done with oil glazes.

The Very First Photo Negative?

Being a photographer it has come back to my remembrance a seminar I took in at Trinity Western University a few years ago. It was on the Shroud of Turin. Quite by chance a couple days ago, at Starbucks, I bumped into the professor, Dr. Phillip Wiebe, who teaches this at Trinity Western. I asked if I might photograph the copy of the shroud he has and graciously  he said yes. I went to his office and took in the lifesize replicas of the shroud. The front and the back. Goosebumps. Astonishing. And fascinating thinking that it may be the oldest and first negative ever in all of history.

I include here the simple shots I took of it. Not intended as art but as representing  fascinating photo negatives that challenges the viewer to really think through what they are seeing. There are so many scourging and cutting marks on the back and legs, actual blood drippings on the head, the arms, the hands and feet. Standing in front of them left me in awe.

For those who would like to read extensively about this ( I am not an expert) there are links online, books, and of course Dr. Phillip Wiebe, Professor of Philosophy at Trinity Western University.

www.shroudforum.com/

www.shroud.com/

www.manoftheshroud.org/exhibit/
http://shroudofturin.wordpress.com/

Book:  The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence That the World's Most Sacred Relic Is Real

by Ian Wilson

INSTRUCTOR:

Phillip H. Wiebe, Ph.D.

Professor of Philosophy

SNC Center

Trinity Western University

7600 Glover Road

Langley, BC V2Y 1Y1

604-888-7511 Ext. 3334

EMAIL:

pwiebe@twu.ca

The wheels are turning regarding ideas and images springing from this. Some images I've been thinking about creating are spiritual, or have spiritual longings of deep calling to deep. Some nebulous, mysterious, ethereal feelings and thoughts until they settle into something concrete. Thinking out loud ...

From a Cocoon

This image is part of my " Emerge " series. Mixed media - layers of epoxy with marble dust, plaster, stones, earth stains, acrylic, silver and pearlescent paint, mica flakes, on wood base.

Seems like all I can think about right now is transformation. Tranformation of the mind, of the soul. How it happens. How to get there from here, how to cross over. By an about face? By paradigm shifts? By rising from emotional constraints and baggage? Muscles forming from forceful thrusts into liberation? By a force of faith so strong you just believe souls can fly? How can a caterpillar 'see' when all around is darkness? What of the wind and light and colors beckoning forth?

I saw this 'poetic saying' online ... don't know who wrote it...

Along a dusty road in India there sat a beggar who sold cocoons. A young boy watched him day after day, and the beggar finally beckoned to him.


"Do you know what beauty lies within this chrysalis? I will give you one so you might see for yourself. But you must be careful not to handle the cocoon until the butterfly comes out."


The boy was enchanted with the gift and hurried home to await the butterfly. He laid the cocoon on the floor and became aware of a curious thing. The butterfly was beating its fragile wings against the hard wall of he chrysalis until it appeared it would surely perish, before it could break the unyielding prison. Wanting only to help, the boy swiftly pried the cocoon open.


Out flopped a wet, brown, ugly thing which quickly died. When the beggar discovered what had happened, he explained to the boy 'In order for the butterfly wings to grow strong enough to support him, it is necessary that he beat them against the walls of his cocoon. Only by this struggle can his wings become beautiful and durable. When you denied him that struggle, you took away from him his only chance of survival."


May the walls of your cocoon be just thick enough to allow you to struggle just long enough to emerge the beautiful person I know you to be.

Embarrassing Situations

Hmmm... I have a plethora of embarrassing situations, even creative ones. Whether decor, painting or sculpture. I get so focussed on what I'm doing that I lose all sense of place and all sense of presence of mind and 'accidents' happen. Oyh. One coming to mind was when I was in a direct metal sculpture class at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Attempting to solder a face together with pieces of metal can be pretty tricky as I was making it very detailed. Focussing intently on the eyebrow and needing a piece to fit in between the brow and eye where it meets the nose, I reached 'through' the flame for a piece of metal further away on the table. Then I saw my finger was white, shriveled and melted, turned off the torch, ran to a sink and yelled for help. Stupidola. LOL. The scar is still with me and am grateful for a functioning finger. This signalled the end of the class because it was clear that I was not practical enough to finish it safely. :) Learning a lot since then about having more presence of mind ensures that more things can be accomplished. But it takes effort and still 'attract' interesting experiences. Funny things happen ... I'm an intensely focussed kind of gal. LOL