I've been preparing artwork for a great little gallery next to Trinity-Bellwoods park, called Graven Feather. The artists who run the gallery are printmakers (and the nicest gallery owners I've ever met). They use half their space as a print studio and teaching space and regularly hold shows in the surrounding space. I like to pop in whenever I go to the Paper Place to
feed my washi habit gather more supplies. I was there early in the summer and heard about this large group show: artists were invited to create works on round cardboard coasters. They hoped to cover their walls with them. I thought it was a great idea, but I wasn't certain I would want to participate in an artshow in my 9th month of pregnancy. But, they recently sent me an email to ask me to publicize their call for artists to the Toronto Etsy Street Team and specifically invited me to take part and I couldn't resist. So, when I was at the Ex for the Fall Home Show, I stopped by to register and get my six coasters. The idea is that artists fill the ~ 4" or 10 cm diameter coaster footprint and can even build outward into the third dimension (which really intrigued me, though most of what I do is pretty 2D). So, some of my creations here are maybe more like 2.5D (not that I'm nerdy enough to calculate their fractal dimension or anything...).
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I had to include a white squirrel, considering the gallery's proximity to Trinity-Bellwoods and White Squirrel Way. So, I printed my 'Legendary White Squirrel of Trinity-Bellwoods' block onto Japanese kozo paper and wood veneer, to make this multimedia 'White Squirrel'.
I left registration late so didn't have the time to carve any circular blocks expressly for this project - but I knew my miniprints would work well. I printed my 'Winged Walrus' block on a silvery pearlescent cardstock, kozo and assorted translucent Japanese tissue papers to make this piece.
I likewise reused my 'T.Rex with Flowers' block to make this collaged linocut with multiple Japanese and other papers, and some embellishing with pen and ink.
I've used my 'Hand-Held Harpy' miniprint block to make a series of multimedia pieces. This one includes the linocut on various washi, embroidery floss and nylon ribbon with some pen and ink and pencil.
I particularly liked how the fossil skeletons turned out, so I made 'Fossil Cliffs' using a detail of the 'Mary Anning' linocut on kozo paper.
I wanted to use my sailing ship from 'Sails' and imagined the vessel sailing right out of the plane of the coaster. What I came up with, in order to use my existing block, has the vessel directed about 30
o out of the plane. I printed it on heavy, wood-like, textured, Japanese cardstock, which I folded into shape. I added a linocut printed deck to the vessel (which you can see if you look down at it, but is a challenge to photograph). Each of the sails, printed on a variety of patterned (mostly screenprinted) Japanese is papers is bent, rolled and folded to make it protrude, like it is billowing in the wind. Then, all the rigging which I have previously just printed in ink, I painstakingly sewed, wove and knotted in linen thread. The piece also includes translucent, Japanese tissue papers and washi tape. A low angle shot might give you more sense of the depth.
