The Future of Pollination - Manufactured Ecosystems

 

Our Fate Is Tied To That Of The Insects, linocut print, 16" x20", Ele Willoughby, 2025

Pollinator Week is a great time to share this print, which expresses the central theme of my work about the Future of Pollination for Manufactured Ecosystems. I have been working on a collection of 15 prints for this show for the last several months. Our food sources and ecosystems around us are dependent on pollinators (mostly bees & other insects, some birds & mammals) but insects populations have lost huge numbers and many species altogether. Our future will be linked to their fate. Each of the bees, moths, butterflies and beetles in my print are native species here. 

Next week our art show will open at Zavitz Art Gallery at the University of Guelph. Each of the visual artists has produced work on various themes in various media about our ecological future looking forward the wake of climate change and habitat loss and at what we can learn from nature. I’m really excited to see what the others have produced! I hope you’ll come see the show if you’re able. 

Photosynthesis
Artist: Yulia Shtern @magical_zoo

Soil Formation
Artist: Lynx @amour.lynx

Cultural Services
Artist: Pablo Rios @the_amazing_world_of_redacted

Biodiversity
Artist: Melanie Barnett
@melanie.barnett.ceramics

Climate Regulation
Artist: Amanda White @thetiniestseed

Rusty patched bumblebee, In The Landscape and These Are a Few Of Our Favourite Bees

 

Some photos of my pieces in our art show, These are a Few of Our Favourite Bees, with my diorama like lambe lambe theatre box for a rusty patched bumblebee, and rusty patched bumblebee print along with the In the Landscape multimedia collaboration with Sarah Peebles.

Come see the show at the Campbell House Museum until July 16! Hear our artist talks this evening at the Canadian Music Centre, 20 St Joseph St, at 7:30 pm. Or you can watch the webcast here!

Dinovember and One of a Kind and Scienterrific and the TEST Christmas Market

Well November is always a busy time of year! This year I also curated and showed in DINOVEMBER, November 4 to 14, a dinosaur themed art show at the Toronto Etsy Street Team Gallery! We had a number of fun and beautiful works including painting, printmaking and scupture; jewellery, housewares, cards and toys. Peggy Muddles of the vexed muddler outdid herself, with a large ceramic dinosaur heart (with anatomy inferred from modern-day bird and reptile hearts) with Cretaceous flora and fauna (palms, grains, mosses, and butterflies) which used a proximity sensor to trigger the playing of a sound file (a composition of electronic music inspired by the time period).

Fossil amonnite ring by Slashpile Designs

Terra Incognita by PaperParadigm

Dinosaur planters from
Sonic Bloom

Watercolour whimsical dinosaurs from Deirdre Wicks of Water in my Paint

Screenprinted T. rexes on paper and as stuffed animals by sunandstarsco

Dinosaur heart multimedia sculpture by the vexed muddler

Linocut dinosaurs and other Mesozoic creatures from minouette

The One of a Kind Show (November 23 to December 3) while always a bit of a marathon for handmakers selling their work, felt like it went faster than in previous years. I debuted my new booth, built by my husband. It's always great to see the "travelling circus" of artists and artisans again. Thank you very much to everyone who came out, helped me, said hello or purchased art!

The next weekend, Peggy Muddles hosted a Scienterrific #sciart pop-up market at the Toronto Etsy Street Team Gallery. Cause she's the best, she let me set-up and abandon my art work there and she sold it on my behalf. I was busy celebrating my son's 4th birthday! His actual birthday was during the One of a Kind, but we opted for the sane plan of delaying the party until afterwards. As one maker friend put it, "Throwing a birthday party during OOAK is like throwing a wedding while at the Olympics!"

Then last weekend was the always-fun Toronto Etsy Street Team Christmas Market at St Stephens-in-the-Fields church in Kensington Market. We had Krampus and Santa visit - as well as an unscheduled visit from the Toronto Fire Department, conveniently from the fire hall across the street due to an alarm! Thank you very much to everyone who came out. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.... but am thankful to be done with all shows and exhibits for 2017. Now I'm going to make some cookies and relax.

UnNatural History

My linocut imaginary menagerie: Snowflake beetles, Chrysanthemum snake, Elusive Cactibou, Iceberg Squid, Batbearoo, Hammerhead Hedgehorse, Duck-billed Deer, Winged Walrus, Mandriltee and Aeolian Jellyfish

 Last Friday, the 13th, was the Opening for 'UnNatural History', curated by Tosca Terán at the Toronto Etsy Street Team Gallery. There were costumes, Tarot readings, and prizes along with a fascinating show of art from 14 artists from Canada, the US, Iceland and Hungary. Works include painting, printmaking, multimedia, photography, bookbinding and sculpture and explore real and imaginary life forms and landscapes.

 This month and for the first two days of November, there gallerywill also host a series of workshops, from creating with thermoplastic, to bat skeleton articulation to decorating sugar skills to celebrate Dia de los Muertos. Find out more on the blog and come see the show while you can!

Paintings by Kristen D'Aquila

Photographs of marine plants and animals in multimedia light boxes by Holly McClellan

Sculptures with detail of one of the sculptures, and what lurks inside, by Lavinia Hanachiuc

Photographic sculptures of landscapes by Mar Hester

Hand-stitched, collaged animal illustrations by Judith Pudden

Multimedia by Kest Schwartzman, including cicadas, butterflies and a bat in metal masks and costumes

Kest Schwartzman

Kest Schwartzman

painting by Rosemary Stehlik

Photos by Wilder Duncan and Ralph Smith. Wilder, who is teaching the bat skeleton articulation workshop and does rogue taxidermy, arranges the bones he works with, in paterns like mandalas or geometric shapes and collaborated with still life photographer Smith

Pati Tozer's miniature etchings and hand-bound book, between Schwartzman's cicadas and D'Aquila's paintings

wundercabinet of beaded specimen by Cynthia Winders

Tosca Terán, glass sculptures with wool, moss and lichen, shaped like plankton

Images are 'Ambient Plague' by Elaine Whittaker about microbes around us. Bone sculptures by Tosca Terán, and figurines by Kathryn Bell

June Shows & Markets: Bees and Returning to Campbell House

Rusty-patched Bumble Bee, linocut, Ele Willoughby, 2017

This week sees a new show at the Toronto Etsy Street Team Gallery, the 3rd annual 'Bees (& the Birds)', which raises funds and awareness of our beleagered pollinators, hosted by my friend Christine Pensa of Art That Moves. Come by the gallery to see the show between June 7 to 20th or join us for the Opening party June 8! Along with 30 artists and craftspeople who've made art inspired by bees, you can see my latest linocut of the endangered rusty-patched bumble bee and a print I made for an entomologist earlier this year, Megachile brevis.

Megachile brevis, linocut by Ele Willoughbby 2017

I'm also taking part in the Toronto Etsy Street Team's Midsummer Market! This is a really fun indoor/outdoor summer show at the Campbell House museum, Queen St and University. Check out the fabulous lookbook and join us for the show June 17!

I've got a couple other exciting things coming up which I can't wait to share with you! I've been a busy week...

Caroline Herschel at EAST

Check out my portrait of Caroline Herschel, representing Art.Science.Gallery in the EAST Austin Studio Tour!

In other news, it's all OOAK prep frenzy here. RJH has made oak, maple and pine frames. I'm becoming pretty good at cutting mats (an aquired skill, let me tell you) and packaging and pricing of prints continues apace!

Oh, and if you are in a German-speaking European nation, look out for my Chinese Zodiac prints in both Happinez and Good Health magazines this December!

Go Ahead and Do It

 

If you are in the Austin, TX area be sure to visit Art.Science.Gallery! I am really excited to take part in their show of portraits of women in science, technology, engineering, and math, which begins this weekend. It's called Go Ahead and Do It and I wish I could be there to see it. If you are able to go, let me know and then tell me all about it!

"The pioneers portrayed in this collection offer an encouraging look at what women can achieve in the STEM fields despite persistent obstacles. “If it’s a good idea,” computer scientist and U.S. Rear Admiral Grace Hopper once quipped, “go ahead and do it.” A portion of the proceeds from this exhibition benefit GirlStart, a non-profit that provides opportunities for girls to become involved in STEM fields."

Opening Reception Saturday September 13, 2014 7-10pm
Images of Women in Science Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon Monday October 13, 2014 6-9pm
Ada Lovelace Day Party Tuesday October 14 6-9pm featuring a brief talk by guest curator Maia Weinstock at 6:30pm

IMPRESSI - Science Inspired Printmakers at Art.Science.Gallery

 

I've very excited to be showing my scientists portraits and Imaginary Friends of Science series as part of IMPRESSI, a science-themed printmaking show at Art.Science.Gallery which is part of the PrintAustin festival at many venues around Austin, TX, this January 15 to February 15, 2014!

The IMPRESSI show will also feature gyotaku (or "fish rubbing") style prints and a workshop by Inked Animal. This traditional Japanese printmaking technique usually involves inking and taking impressions of actual fish; they've extended the method to other animal specimen as well. Jed Dore of Ink & Sword makes fabulous, graphic, retro-styled screenprints on science, math and engineering (STEM) themes. Jennifer Lynch's work includes a gorgeous series on crystals. Cathy Savage, one of the Chairs of PrintAustin, has some fabulous scientist prints I've long admired. Jenn Schmitt's amazing Periodic Table Printmaking Project is a collaboration and print exchange where every printmaker was assigned an element on the periodic table to illustrate with a 6" x 6" print. I always thought I should have participated and now have a chance to do so as a few of the originals need replacing. Have a look at the loveliest periodic table you ever did see. It promises to be a great, and very original show.

PrintAustin, "this inaugural print extravaganza is a month-long event celebrating the art of original printmaking, educating the public about the traditions of printmaking as well as showcasing the innovations of the contemporary approach". Read more on their blog.

If you are in Austin, be sure to check it out - and tell me all about it! I would love to see it in person and would be there if I could.

The Collective

Check out this post and others, on The Collective blog, showing some of the beautiful things to be found during our 12 day show at Triangle gallery. (38 Abell St., off Queen W, just east of Dufferin)

Art Show: A Hidden Place

I (Ele, aka minouette) am very excited to be taking part in this art show, along with Ron Caddigan (aka Cyclops And Owl), Chris O'Brien, Reynardin and Faunalia! There will be music by Synap and Romantis. There will be cupcakes by Adorable Portable Cakes. These are some extremely talented people, and dear friends. The show A Hidden Place at is at 1254Art. I can promise you unicorns, narwhals and dinosaurs. Where else are you going to find that? Please join us for the Opening!

Place: 1254Art, 1254 Dundas St. W (at Dovercourt)
Time: December 3rd, 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Info: The show can be viewed throughout December, by appointment.
Please contact ahiddenplace '@' gmail.com