Art shows: Sheep, Space & Bees

I feel so behind in my blogging. Sometimes wrangling a very busy toddler, running a business, making art and running a thousand-member team (thankfully with help from excellent collaborators!) and you know, basic life stuff, like buying, cooking and eating food seems like more than enough to fill my days. Recently, we had a bit of a photoshoot in my studio... and I don't mean with the official family photojournalist (aka my husband). Some of the things I do for things from secret minouette places and for the Toronto Etsy Street Team will soon be getting a little press. Can't wait to share that! All these things keep me very busy, but, I don't want neglect blogging. Let me play catch up.

Year of the Goat show at PROOF Studio Gallery in the Distillery District

Like previous years, I was happy to take part in PROOF Studio Gallery's international print exhibit celebrating the Chinese New Year. This year of course is symbolized by yang, an animal which can be translated as sheep or goat. I've leaned towards 'sheep' and included my Cloned Sheep (the 'Hello Dolly!' one) and Yang: the Sheep or Goat prints.  (I can see them in the photo: Cloned Sheep is the colourful one with the blue mat in the centre and Yang in three over to the right). The show ran from February 18th to March 1 at PROOF and then hit the road, visiting OCADU print department, the Ottawa School of Art,  Concordia University Mouse Print Gallery in Montreal and Muskoka Arts Place.

Local gallery Artisans At Work is hosting
Terra Nova & Friends Exhibit
Show runs through April 2015
Artisans At Work
2071 Danforth Avenue, Toronto
Hours: Mon: Closed; Tues & Wed: 10-6; Thurs & Fri: 10-7; Sat & Sun: 11-5pm
Terra Nova & Friends Exhibit: Mother Nature, Intergalactic & Extraterrestrial Art.
First Friday Reception: April 3, 2015, 7:30-10pm. Music by The Sidewalkers, licensed bar, treats, art, and local artists.

So, I've been framing some of my earth and space science and scientists prints for the show!

My friend (and fellow TEST leader) Christine Pensa is co-curating a show about bees in June with the lovely women of Graven Feather gallery, so I'm planning to show my bee prints there, perhaps including some new ones. See Christine's Art That Moves blog for more information, or to apply to the show.

Coincidentally, Art.Science.Gallery in Austin is also hosting a bee themed show. The Buzz Stops Here (April 18 - May 30) will feature encaustic artworks (which involves painting with melted beeswax) about the science and conservation of bees! The medium really is the message here. I've never tried encaustic, so I won't be participating in their show, but I've recently sent a big package of my bee prints to their shop the Supply Room, to be available during the show.

Dolly Spectrum

I made a second print of my Dolly-the-cloned-sheep block. I was initially thinking of a multi-colour Dolly print, somewhat in the vein of a Warholesque print at the Year of the Rabbit show. I was a bit worried about borrowing that aesthetic - the balance between a little nudge-nudge-wink-wink allusion and cliché is not easy. I also wanted to communicate a sense of movement to allude to the cloning: one Dolly-two Dolly-three Dolly more... So, after printing Dolly on a number of coloured somegami origami kozo (or mulberry paper) sheets, I switched gears and formulated the rainbow-spectrum plan (ROYGBV). The successive Dollies, from red to violet, are placed at smaller seperations to give that sense of movement, like fanning a deck of cards.

The image is a stitched scan. We figured out how to do this with my new scanner and Photoshop, with some swearing and some laughing, but ultimate success last night. So now, I can scan the rest of my larger prints! Sometimes it pays to be extremely stubborn. ;)

Hello (cloned) Dolly!

So, this February, the Mad Scientists of Etsy challenge is Keith Campbell the biologist, who was part of the team that produced the cloned sheep Dolly. You remember Dolly? She was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer. She was born 5 July 1996. Usually, when the theme is a scientist, I do a portrait. I am a little more wary about the 20th century scientists, because we lack distance. Further, being out-numbered by biologists, on the Mad Scientists team, we do get some characters about whom I know next to nothing. Undoubtedly, Dolly was a big science story, but I know nothing of Campbell and I can't say that naming this sheep, cloned from a mammary cell, for the "most impressive mammaries" really impresses me. Ms. Parton has a great sense of humour, but that doesn't mean that I support objectification. I wouldn't want to be humourless, but people are more than their parts. Likewise, sheep. Though really, I suspect we likely need more distance to fully grasp the ethics of cloning issues too, so this is not that kind of post. No, this is simpler: the really cool thing about block printing is that one gets (or can get) multiple originals so there's a obvious analogy to cloning. The title I'm blaming on the accidental punning headline-writer. After groaning, I decided RJH's comment of "Hello Dolly!" was corny but funny. Plus, I'm obsessed with typography. He also said I chose to "go pink or go home" but I really wanted the contrast with the gray. I must say, my magenta ink is the pits. I wonder if it's a bad batch or whether there's some sort of chemical problem with their emulsifier. Anyhow, enjoy the sheep: edition of 6 on Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper, each sheet is 12.5 inches wide by 10.25 inches tall (31.8 cm by 26 cm).

I must run. I'm in the middle of a symposium on scientific visualization. This is my lunch break.