Available for purchase on my Etsy shop!
After a hiatus during my studies in Winnipeg, I finally got around to relaunching my Etsy shop. I worked really hard on rephotographing my art and presenting it in a way that makes it more appealing to purchase and place in homes like yours!
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Thanks to everyone who showed up to support me at the RAW: Vancouver showcase back in April. For those of you who couldn't make it, don't worry there's always next time! The event was a success and I definitely learned some valuable business skills while preparing for the show, setting up, tearing down, and of course throughout the night while interacting with lovers of art and newbies alike! I love hearing everyone's opinions and reactions to my work. It is especially interesting getting feedback and unique perspectives outside of an academic setting (this is still fairly new for me). Please check out a selection of photos from the event below, taken by the official photographers, Mike Chen Photography and Evan Chen Photography.
A week or so ago, I finally hunkered down and spent a day hanging my art onto my walls. My apartment now feels like a mini gallery of my work and it feels a lot more like home. It's also starting to feel more like a studio and a space where I can be inspired to continue to create on a constant basis. Instead of looking at blank walls, I look up and I can see a timeline of my art over the past several years. This inspires me to keep going and to assess where do I go from here? What do I want to make now?
There are days when I'm not sure what project to work on and sometimes I question why I'm spending every spare moment of my time on art. But when I look around my space and remember how far I've come and how hard I've worked on my art, it pushes me to keep on moving forward. I've been reading "In the Company of Women" by Grace Bonney and it's reminding that being a creative individual is hard work, and it takes time, patience, and perseverance. These are things I struggle to often remember, but I'm doing my best to be present in the moment and enjoy the journey. I have to keep reminding myself that every artist starts somewhere and I'm just at the cusp of being an emerging artist. Patience doesn't always come easily to me, but it's something I'm working on. Like a muscle, I know it'll get stronger with more exercise.
Everything hanging on the walls is art done by me. The piece on the mantle, above the fireplace, is by my cousin Marvyne Jenoff (http://www.marvynejenoff.org/).
The plant on the left is named Vladimir and the plant on the right is named Priscilla, or as I like to call them Vlad and Pris.
Yayoi made it home and I’m currently reading “In the Company Women” by Grace Bonney. It’s an inspirational book with interviews of various creative women in a range of disciplines.
I will be presenting/selling my art at RAW: Vancouver, on Thursday, April 12th. The event is a showcase of various creatives across several different disciplines including fashion designers, musicians, hair stylists, visual artists, and more! Ticket sales go directly towards supporting the artists who are participating. Therefore, even if you are unable to attend, you can still support me!
Hint, hint, nudge, nudge...
Tickets are sold here, on my RAW artist profile. As always I'd love to see as many friendly faces as possible! I'll be offering a 20% off discount to anyone who buys a ticket from me. Also I will have a basket full of discounted items, as I am trying to flush out some old work from my inventory in order to keep my work more consistent.
I've been working hard during some time off from my full-time job, in order to create more work and come prepared for my first real art market experience. I'm so excited, and I'm sure it'll be an event like I've never been apart of!
Check out photos below of some of the new art I've been making especially for RAW!
In March, I started on a youth mural mentoring project with Rachel Kirkpatrick and Semiahmoo Arts. We've been meeting for the past three weeks with several students from Elgin Park Secondary. After a few days of exploring ideas and concepts, we finally completed the sketch/layout for our mural and the concept has been approved by the city! This means that later in April we will start to paint the actual mural. Hurray! I'm excited, the students are excited, and I can't wait to get this painted, so that everyone can come see it when they visit White Rock! This is a student led project and I'm so eager to see them take on their first mural/public art project.
Below are some images of the workshops we've had over the past few weeks. Stay tuned for more photos of the process and of course the final reveal of the mural.
I've been working on a new series of paintings that stem from ideas I wrote about in my thesis (I Come From A Long Line of Machines). Below are photos and videos documenting the process, as well as a video revealing the selection of the first squares, used to create the first quilted painting of the series.
Sorry for the lack of blogging and art updates lately, balancing a full-time job and an art practice is not an easy task. I'm doing what I can and I'm happy to say that I'll be in an exhibition this month. It's an exhibition celebrating women in history, in conjunction with International Women's Day.
“International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8 every year. It commemorates the movement for women’s rights. The earliest Women’s Day observance was held on February 28, 1909 in New York.
The Celebration of Herstory Art Exhibition is Thursday, March 8 from 5:30 to 7:30pm. It will be held at the White Rock Community Centre at 15154 Russell Avenue, White Rock.”
I'll be showing my new cross-stitch piece "Yayoi Kusama: The Queen of Dots", a portrait of an artist who has always been source for inspiration for me. Kusama is known for her obsessive practice that utilizes the simplistic form of dots. The cross-stitch piece took a total of 45 hours hours to complete and was framed using resources I had on hand in my studio. The wooden frame was from an old canvas painting and was repainted with the Kusama's signature dots. The window matte was cut from black paper and the cross-stitched canvas is fixed to recycled cardboard. This process of recycling and repurposing old materials connects back to my goal of a $100 art budget for 2018.
I have also been hired as an Artist Mentor throughout March and April, for a mural project with 8-10 high school students from Elgin Secondary. Along with Rachel Kirkpatrick, we will be leading this group of AP Art students in the creation of a mural to be painted in White Rock (East Beach Residential location).
Rachel and I scoping out the mural site during our first meeting discussing planning and preparation for our upcoming studio sessions with the Elgin Park students.
The planning for the mural will take place over the course of three studio sessions where the students will collaborate, brainstorm, and pitch a mural concept/sketch. They will be presenting their idea/concept to White Rock City Council for approval. Once the mural has been approved, Rachel and I will oversee the painting of the mural until it's completion. The plan is to have the mural completed by the end of May at the latest. Hopefully, the weather will improve and we can get it thrown up in April.
That's all for now, stay tuned for updates on the #WRYouthMural!
Over the past couple of years, I've been thinking more and more about my carbon footprint and my impact on the environment. As an artist it wasn't really a topic that came up while I was in school studying art. In fact, it seemed as though we were always told to make "more" or make it "bigger". But what about all the waste that comes with making these decisions as an artist?
Let's say you're shopping at the art supply store and you come across paint. You see a colour that makes you want to cry because it's so beautiful! You look further on and find one, no, two more colours of paint that you just have to have. Oh! and don't forget that special pen that you already have three of, and another sketchbook (even though you've got another blank one sitting at home, but it's not the one you've been waiting for to go on sale!). I'm sure you get my point, artists are guilty to falling trap to a constant consumption of art supplies, and most of the time it's totally unnecessary.
I am now more aware of the amount waste I've been producing within my art practice as well as in my daily life. I've been inspired through intensive internet research, looking at bloggers and other social media influencers, such as Lauren Singer (Trash is for Tossers) and Bea Johnson (Zero Waste Home). They are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to everything I've been reading, but they are the ones who inspired me to start on this journey of minimalism and zero waste.
Zero Waste! Minimalism! But how is that even possible as an artist?! Well I'm not literally going to produce zero waste, but my goal is to decrease my waste/trash going to the landfill, by at least 50%. One of the ways I will be doing this is by limiting my art budget for the year of 2018 to $100. That's right, $100! To give you an idea of how big of a goal this really is, I'll be straight up with you and tell you that in the year 2017, I spent around $1500 if not more on my art. Granted I was a student, completing my MFA, with a little help from scholarship and bursary funding, but believe me when I say that $100 is a huge stretch for an art budget!
Even though an annual budget of $100 for my art practice might seem outrageous and impossible, I'm ready prove that it's achievable! The thing is, there are ways to get by without spending any money at all, I just need to be a little more resourceful.
First off, I already have a large selection of supplies which I have accumulated over my many years as an artist. Second, I can find a lot of useful things on Craigslist, flea markets, and thrift stores. So far this year, I've spend $19, which included a flea market find of over 230 skeins of embroidery floss and about 3-4 skeins of yarn. Third, things can be re-used, repurposed, and re-invented, after all aren't artists supposed to be creative? Who says I can't make art from things I already have!
I've got a long list of project ideas and no where near enough to work on them! I'm currently working on a cross-stitched portrait of Yayoi Kusama, which I am submitting to a juried exhibition titled "Celebration of Herstory". The show is a celebration around International Women's Day, March 8. I'd like to create several more cross-stitched portraits of women artists that'll become part of a larger series/body of work. I also have plans to re-purpose many of my old painting into a body of work that relies on an pre-established pattern/instructions. To give you a hint, it'll be a paint by numbers sort of approach to painting with a cross-over into quilting. I also have plans of further exploring projects from my thesis and possibly experimenting with more animation and video work. All of these projects use very little materials, therefore the waste that they will produce will be very minimal. That's the goal, create lots, but produce as little as possible!
Earlier this year I was in a group exhibition at Deer Lake Gallery, in Burnaby, called "Horror Vacui". The show included myself, as well as two fellow UFV BFA grads, Kendra Schellenberg, and Julie Epp.
For those of you who were unable to make it out to see the exhibition in person, here are some documentation photos of the exhibition.
Things have been super crazy while I've been getting ready for my two exhibitions coming up in October. Therefore this will be a short blog! Amongst all of the chaos I did manage to create some new art! I also recently finished a cross-stitch commission based off of an 8-bit video game called, Chrono Trigger.
I'm excited to share that I will have two exhibitions coming up this Fall! The first is a group show with some fellow classmates, Julie Epp and Kendra Schellenberg, we all received our BFA degrees from UFV. The exhibition is titled, Horror Vacui, which simply means the fear of empty space. As you can imagine all the works in the show are extremely detailed and obsessive in nature. The show will include works created individually, as well as a collaborative mural we will be painting/drawing directly onto the gallery wall. Read more to learn about each of our inspirations for the show, as well as the exhibition statement.
Horror Vacui is the fear of empty space and the filling of emptiness with details in a work of art. This visual art expression is an important source of inspiration for artists Mallory Donen, Julie Epp, and Kendra Schellenberg. Each artist struggles with issues of fear, joy, and acceptance throughout their creative process. Donen’s practice is driven by the conflict between order and chaos, and explores the infinite nature of digital imagery. On the other hand, Epp’s process is a battle with fear, inner thoughts, and a search for calm in the mundane creative process. Lastly, Schellenberg uses the overwhelming visual aesthetic of horror vacui to engage in conversations about gender, beauty standards, and acceptance. Everyone struggles with inner conflict; Horror Vacui visualizes the mental chaos of life. Art allows us to engage in moments of deep consideration and at times can be a gateway into a numbing calm, empty of worries or thoughts.
My process fluctuates between spontaneity and my obsessive need for control. I find comfort in keeping things in order, but at the same time when things become too controlled there is little room for growth and change. That is why I am always pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and intentionally creating moments of disruption. This struggle between chaos and order is the driving force of my art practice. I am constantly introducing ways of relinquishing control throughout the artistic process. But I inevitably end up back where I started, in an ordered, restrained system of creation. My work explores notions of obsession, control, chaos, infinity, and absorption. Inspired by the theme of horror vacui, my art reflects on the infinite calming chaos of digital imagery.
In an age where lives are lived through online experiences, my brain has become over stimulated. Multitasking, my old friend, is an enemy of productivity; I must embrace the mundanity of focus. My artwork is likely the only consistent focus I’ve had. My mandalas sit inches from my eyes while I draw, and though I am focused, my brain is crashing, burning, bursting with thoughts. It might seem like a good opportunity to be thinking; a chance to be inspired. But the thoughts hang dramatically over me like a creature ready to crush. They are ideas and aspirations but they are also pressure and panic. My work is a chance for me to focus my energy, and it takes a lot of work to get into a headspace where something good comes out of it.
My mandalas are a product of years of disrupted focus, followed by relief. The sculptures are the opposite: they are a product of intense concentration followed purely by thirst and hunger. To me, horror vacui is about the fear of allowing empty space to be filled by anything but artistic joy.
I have always been drawn to work that contains a lot of detail. When I am creating my own work, there’s always a part of me that needs to prove that my art is worthy of attention, and my solution to this is often to fill it with detail—as if this somehow proves that I care about my work, that it is something of value—because I’ve spent a lot of time on it. At the same time, my art practice is an extension of my feminism, and is a way for me to engage with issues that trouble me. I saw an opportunity to use the overwhelming nature of horror vacui as a means of conveying the overwhelming feeling of needing to conform to gender roles and beauty standards. By incorporating imagery I’ve tapped into in previous work, I hope to dig further into representing the affect of the socially-constructed gender binary that is so prevalent in the media we consume.
The second exhibition is a solo exhibition, which will feature my new work titled Glitch Series 01. The show will also include a select few works from my MFA Thesis Exhibition. During the opening reception of the exhibition, on Friday, October 27th, I will also be giving an artist talk discussing ideas from my thesis and how it influenced the creation of this new body of work being showcased in the solo exhibition. The talk will also include a slideshow of images that give an even more in-depth look into my process and my hard drive of digital files.
Since returning home after the completion of my MFA thesis I've been taking it pretty easy and trying to allow myself some sort of break. I've recently completed a new project titled Glitch Series 01, which involved converting a series of digital image glitches (sourced from images generated in Photoshop) into a cross-stitch pattern which was then completed as a cross-stitch work.
The images used for this project were a series of glitches that occurred one day while I was working on another project in Photoshop. The file that I opened did not appear the way that it was supposed to, instead it was a collaged mashup of several files which I had opened within the past week or so. Instead of dismissing this unexpected moment as a computer failure, I accepted it as a gift. It was as if the computer had gotten frustrated with the overwhelming amount of information and data I had given it within a short span of time and this was its way of materializing that frustration. The computer had spoken and I wanted to savour every last moment of it that I could.
I proceeded to save and alter these strange glitches that reloaded and occurred each time I saved the file. I adjusted the curves and colourations of some of the images before saving them, in order to enhance the artistic, almost painterly qualities. In the moment it was a highly energized, playful interaction, a constant wave of communication that fluctuated between myself and the computer.
I stored these glitch images in a folder on my hard drive, unsure of my future plans for them. It wasn't until I began integrating cross-stitching into my thesis projects that I realized this is what the glitch series would become.
I selected 9 cropped sections (below) of the single glitch image (above) to create a series of images that would then be converted into a series of cross-stitches.
The 9 selected images above were then uploaded onto a website called StitchFiddle.com, where they were converted into cross-stitch patterns. Below are the resulting cross-stitched works.
Each piece is approximately 3.5" x 3.5". I'm still working out the kinks for final display but currently my plan is to frame each digital image with its corresponding cross-stitch partner in a 20" x 20" frame with a double window matte. Below is a rough mock-up of what each of the final pieces will look like framed.
This project evolved and developed over a long period of time, but I am extremely happy with the results. I wouldn't be surprised if I continue doing more cross-stitch works with a digital aesthetic in the future.
Last week our MFA Thesis Exhibition titled 3...2..1.Chaos opened and I defended my thesis I Come From a Long Line of Machines.
I Come From a Long Line of Machines investigates the repetitive processes of embroidery, finger knitting, digital image-making using Photoshop, and how they are similar in their use of mechanical systems. By engaging in a collaborative process with different machines and tools, I attempt to share control of artistic production. I address notions of artistic authorship, chaos, order, control, infinity, and mechanical repetitive systems. I embrace systematic processes in order to create art that is similar to that of a programmed machine. By doing so I am able to gain perspective into the ways in which machines and humans are alike.
