Workshop with the artists: Felting

Look at those cute little hands making a felted ball!

(photo courtesy of Jody Denny, from www.greeneyedmonster.ca)

Little kids, big kids, in-between kids, parents, and caregivers enjoyed Felting with WhiteFeather on Saturday at the ALMAG. WhiteFeather lead us in the how-to and an hour and a half flew by.

What is felting? It's transforming wool into a different shape entirely with just some warm water, a little bit of soap, and a bit of molding. It's a great medium for textile arts and a satisfying sensory experience especially for young children. I think it's an activity that really speaks to the importance of the process in art. As an example of what can be done with felting WhiteFeather had the cutest little felted doll to show us while she was here.

Some other felted goodies I've found:

• Check the beautiful baby mobile this Montessori mom created with felted balls.
• Martha has a whole lineup of felted projects to show you.
• And on Etsy, this seller has felted Easter Eggs! (Have you stumbled upon Etsy yet? A site chockful of handmade goodness.)

On that note, be sure to pop in to the gallery this Saturday, April 3rd (from 10:30am - 12pm) for our Easter Family Art Workshop. Bring the whole family in, young and old, to celebrate creating art together! We'll be talking about what symbolism is and experimenting in mixed media while decorating Easter Eggs in unusual ways. Should be another fun Saturday!

Want more Collicutt and WhiteFeather?

Check out these recent reviews...

• Curatorial essay by She Curates, on WhiteFeather's exhibition My Pretties at Gallery 1313 in Toronto.
• WhiteFeather on CBC
• Carol at Gallery78
• Gallery78 on Eviscera, Carol and WhiteFeather's earlier collaborative exhibition
• An essay on Ex Corpore by curator Léola Le Blanc, following the Ex Corpore exhibition earlier this year at the Mary E. Black Gallery.
• A recent blog post on unruly including WhiteFeather's Alma.

Which begs to question, have you made Alma's acquaintance yet? She would love to meet you!

Today...

• I battle the chill in the air to get to work. You know when the calendar says Spring, so you just can't face your winter jacket anymore, even though you think your fingers may fall off from cold? That was me this morning.
• I open up the gallery, turn on the lights, and say hello to the ladies, my new friends here. Their names are Alma, Murmet (and his friend Mumble), Cha-chi, Hodmedod, Moggy, tattie Bogle, Moppet, Effigia, Jack-o, and Bambin. I call them the ladies, but some of them are indeed men, Cha-chi to be sure. They're a quiet bunch, but they have so much to say!
• Messages hold two more registrants for our workshops with Carol and WhiteFeather this weekend!
• First up on the agenda, well actually that's coffee. Second thing on the agenda? Find a new artist to exhibit next month. Yep, ixnay on the rothelBay, my artist has backed out on us. Thankfully I was just realizing the other day that I've been fairly innodated with requests to exhibit, so I'm quite confident I can find a great artist in a pinch. Speaks to the richness of our local art scene I think. I'll keep you updated!
• Then on to the lovely world of finance. Time to sit down and punch in the numbers. Every art-type's favorite job I'm sure.

'Til next time, friends of the gallery!

Workshops with the artists!

We are very excited to offer workshops with the artists this Saturday!

Felting with WhiteFeather
Saturday, March 27th, 2010 
10:30 – 12pm
$12/child

WhiteFeather will lead children ages 5-10 in a workshop on making felted shapes from wool, such as a small multicoloured ball and a 'snake'. Wool fleece dyed with different flavours of Kool-Aid will be supplied for felting, and participants should be prepared to get a little bit wet and soapy! Wool felting is a satisfying sensory experience for all, but especially for young children. Rhythmic and peaceful, the process is as enjoyable as the finished product as warm water and soapy bubbles delight. WhiteFeather instructs Fibre Arts at NB College of Craft and Design in Fredericton.

Block Printing with Carol Collicutt
Saturday, March 27th, 2010
1 – 2:30pm
$12/child

Discover the possibilities of block printing on paper using the simplest of materials. Create a template which can be used for one print or many. An easy introduction to printmaking. Carol is an artist in Fredericton, NB, practicing for over 20 years from her studio at the Gallery Connexion. She currently instructs Mixed Media at NB College of Craft and Design in Fredericton.

The mythical, the spiritual, and the corporeal

So you've at least had a peek at a bit of Ex Corpore on yesterday's post. Maybe you've even been in to the gallery to see the show yourself. What do you think? The feelings this exhibition provokes are probably not those of the warm and fuzzy type. An uneasy feeling is more probable. And that's just fine. You might even contend that this is exactly the point.

As art has served to do throughout time Carol and WhiteFeather's work mirrors our world and points out what's happening around us, invoking us to think critically about our own understanding of the cultural and social issues that snar us. The pieces you will discover in Ex Corpore are intended to provoke contemplation, to encourage the viewer to consciously register their reactions, mull over their automatic thoughts and feelings brought on, and decipher why these pieces symbolize what they do to them. Through sculptural fibre-based works and assemblage of found and mixed media and organic materials, WhiteFeather and Collicutt address topics surrounding their identity as women and what physicality encompasses, the mythical, the spiritual, and the corporeal.

It is accurate to state that WhiteFeather creates intricately adorned little dolls. However, the sweet little Danish blonde haired, blue eyed cherubs that my grandmother crafted are not the imagery you're looking for. WhiteFeather's 'dolls' are created of materials like animal bones, human hair and bird feathers, among other materials. The juxtaposition of the materials and the context is unnerving at best, but it's exactly this contrast that speaks to us so starkly. The symbolism of disembodied hair and discarded body parts is strong. To take advantage of WhiteFeather's message and appreciate this exhibit, you need to dissect the symbolism. Consider why it is that the same long and shiny black hair on the head of a young woman is beautiful, but off the body (in your food, on your sweater, in your art) is repulsive? Disembodied pieces, materials WhiteFeather has referred to as 'material the spirit once inhabited', symbolize death to us, which in turn raises our fear of the unknown, and the superstitions and paranoia that accompany that fear. When WhiteFeather creates new bodies for these old and broken body parts it raises the kinds of questions around physical mortality that we generally prefer to avoid. These dolls are eerily neither 'here nor there'. They too will grow old and decay, but what of their spirit then? What of their spirit now? We can't put our finger on what happens to the spirit after life, and body parts after death are grating symbols of that unknown. As a general rule humans hate the unknown. It bothers us and we create theories to explain it. What is rational and irrational blurs. WhiteFeathers 'Alma' takes all of these reactions to another level entirely. At life size, she is much more impossible to downplay or ignore than the smaller pieces. And she has a bunnytail. And not of the Hugh Hefner variety.

Carol's work also reminds us of our own mortality and the questions and fears we have around it. How do we handle the deterioration and decay of our own bodies? As a culture we respond with an obsession in beauty and youth. An evolutionary standpoint would remind you of our origins, tell you that health, vigor, flawless beauty are obviously the most attractive and desirable choice because they are signifiers of the heartiest mate, that we are genetically predisposed to choose flawless for the best chances for our lineage, for the survival of our spawn. This lingering mindframe results in a desperate fight against disease and ill-health, and maybe even more profusely against even the symbols of aging. Our feelings of self-worth can be derived by a culturally dictated view of our bodies and fear drives decisions to options like elective surgical interventions, which really only mask the aging. As Collicutt presents it, you realize this is the ultimate mashing of external and internal influences on our bodies. In spite of our extreme attempts to present an outward appearance of youth we are still encased in bodies that inevitably wear old. Disease that requires surgical intervention is a crisis that is all encompassing for us, our physical bodies and mental states and cultural ideals are inextricably interwoven. In 'Damaged' Collicutt addresses gender specific ailments and diseases such as breast cancer and hysterectomies. Carol's scar tissue artwork consists of removed ages spots and scars framed in embroidery hoops and again we see these familiar materials of 'women's work' out of context and alluding to our art of denying aging. Like our reaction to WhiteFeather's dolls we would rather not look at changes in our bodies that remind us of our own decay, we would rather cut them out, just get rid of them, and maybe we can escape death altogether also.

Ex Corpore

In case you haven't been in to see the collaborative exhibition by Carol Collicutt and WhiteFeather, here's a few peeks. The show will be on display from March 18th to April 17th, 2010. You mull over the art, this work begs you to contemplate your own reactions to it. I'll be back tomorrow with my thoughts! 

Welcome

Phew! It's like the day after a big party here at the gallery! Thursday night we hosted the opening reception of Ex Corpore, a collaborative exhibition by well-renowned Fredericton artists, WhiteFeather and Carol Collicutt. The opening also doubled as our own big reopening. The gallery had been temporarily closed for a few months and our whole community is very excited to see it reopen, arriving at the opening in droves. I'm very excited to be here to facilitate this revival!

I think today I have been here as the new director for very close to one month. I began back in February, while the gallery remained closed with no art up. Together with the board I've organized and revamped the space, among other projects revitalizing the gallery entry into a welcoming and attractive space fit for our beautiful gallery. The entry had formerly housed the directors desk, a messy entry at best! Now I sit at my desk in the new office further back from the entry, enjoying the open doors to the gallery as guests peruse, enjoy, and take in the exhibit on their Spring Saturday. It's wonderful. We're now officially open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, from 10:30am to 3:00, and Thursday evenings, 3 to 8pm, closed Sunday and Monday.

I have big plans for Spring at the ALMAG. I hope to have people of all ages in through our programming. We have workshops with each of the artists this Saturday, March 27th, Felting with WhiteFeather for 5 to 10 year olds and Block Printing with Carol for 8 to 14 year olds. We're offering an Easter family workshop on April 3rd, where we'll be discussing the exhibit and mixed media, what it is as an art and experimenting with our own mixed media Easter eggs! The evening of April 15th brings Teachers Night Out, a chance for teachers to join up to discuss art education. We're having Susan Galbraith lead the discussion this month, and we'll be focusing on Responding to Art. This should be a really enjoyable and enlightening conversation. Friday morning, the 16th, I will be visiting the preschoolers upstairs at the library, bringing Stories in Art to storytime. This will be an introduction to fine art via the illustrators, in relation to our current exhibit we will be focusing on mixed media. As always, for more information visit our website, give us a call at 506-392-6769, or pop in at 8 McCain Street in Florenceville-Bristol, NB.

Alright, enough with the promo, get out and enjoy your first weekend of Spring! I'll be back soon with my own thoughts on Ex Corpore. It's a deep exhibit full of subtle and not-so-subtle nuances and topics for dissection, one I'm looking forward to exploring with you.