PAST RESIDENT: SUSAN GARDINER BOURLIER
Hip One Hop One, Acrylic on Canvas
Time to travel back to the early days at Spark Box to reflect on resident Susan Gardiner Bourlier. In 2009 Susan attended the residency as one of our Emerging Artist Award Winners. She had completed her studies as an architect but after working in the field for a short time realized that it wasn’t for her. Her passion was painting and so she quit her job and set out to work full time as an artist. This was when we met Susan. We could seriously relate to her drive and passion for the arts.
Command Break, Acrylic on Canvas
To give you a little glimpse into Susan’s personality I have posted this write-up found on her website:
“These are the words on a button that I found while living abroad in Barcelona.
They resonated instantly, prompting me to spend the single euro required to acquire the souvenir. In the years since, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the button and the meaning of its words (or so I thought):
confusion is clarity
Having spent a great deal of my life in a state of confusion, I think I found this reassuring – but also, and more importantly, true. Although it is one of many, small and inconspicuous, not particularly beautiful, and has no value as defined by the standards of our society, this small object has become a sort of talisman for me. It reminds me to trust my instincts, because they have never failed to steer me in the right direction. Even, or perhaps even more appropriately, when I found out that the line is not a philosophical revelation, but a humorous Spanish phrase, more accurately translated as:
this confusion is very clear
A small, but significant difference.“
Push One Pull Two, Acrylic on Canvas
Push One Pull One, Acrylic on Canvas
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RECENT NEWS: ART, FOOD AND NATURE
Katie Bruce (right image taken by Katie)
This week was filled with work but also play. Residents Katie and Jane continued their pieces from last week. Katie brought in a new colour to her embroidery pieces which really highlight the embossed areas found in our old wood floors. Jane started a new print inspired by the many cat pictures she has up in her studio and also finished her prints from last week with glitter and sequins.
Jane Wiseheart
Kyle and I ran a private silkscreen workshop which went really well and we are happy to have two new open studio members at Spark Box because of it! We also met with Kristy from Pathways to Independence in Trenton and are going to be hosting a workshop with a group their later this month.
Cooking at From the Farm
This week also brought a lot of cooking and great food. My mother, sister, grandmother and I went to a cooking workshop at From the Farm where we learned the art of cooking Italian food. We made a four course meal during the four hour. We started with an artichoke dip, followed by handmade ravioli, the main course brought pesto wrapped pork with roasted fennel and arugula salad and finally an upside down apply cake. Amazing!
A Weekend Away
In addition to the cooking, printing and workshops of this week Kyle and I spent a lot of time outside. We went away for two days this past weekend to a friends cottage on the Kawartha Lakes. It was a great little break and a nice weekend with friends we don’t see very often. We also starting working in the garden which is hard work but extremely rewarding.
Our Garden
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PAST RESIDENT: PANSEE ATTA
The Lotus Eaters
Recent Queen’s University graduate Pansee Atta attended the Spark Box Residency this past February to work on a number of paintings.
Pansee’s work stems from her upbringing: “Having lived in 13 residences in 6 cities in 3 countries in 22 years, I have never had the privilege of calling one place home, or one tradition my own. Nevertheless, the internal conflict between my hybrid Egyptian upbringing and my Canadian influence has been a primary focus of my art.”
Catharsis
While staying with us she started several paper works for her New Gods series. This “series involves reworking mythologies to find archetypes that cross cultural boundaries. Linking culturally-specific images from different contexts that serve similar purposes for their respective communities.”
Totem 2
Totem
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BUSINESS OF ART: ONLINE ESSENTIALS
This week the Business of Art Vault brings this question:
“How, as an artist, can I make my practice relevant to the way contemporary consumers choose to interact with their media?”
From this question I have decided to put together the online essentials for the visual artist.
#1 Create a Website for Yourself!
Why? Because this is going to be the easiest way to get your work out to the public. It is an easy way to show people your work, your artist statement and your artist resume. It is also easy for other people to share, link to, pin on Pinterest, post to social media sites, etc.
Blog vs Website? This is something to consider when starting your website. Do you want a blog, a website or both. I personal would choose both. Your website can be where you show galleries of your work, have your written documentation posted and your contact information. Your blog can be where you show your audience what you are up to, what you are making, how you are making it, the inspiration for your work, the shows you are in, the residencies you are attending … you get the picture.
How? Let’s assume you are like me and you know nothing about coding, website design, hosting and all that other good stuff that comes along with making a website. No problem! There are TONS of sites out there that make this stuff easy for you.
Here are some websites/blog sites that have great templates and will host your website taking all the hard steps out:
BLOG
-WordPress (here is a post about free WordPress templates that are awesome for artists)
-Tumblr (here is a post about the Top 10 Tumblr themes)
PORTFOLIO WEBSITES
-Krop
#2 Use Social Media.
Why? Because it is a great way to keep people interested and aware of what you are up to. By using Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. you can remind your audience that you are around, working hard and making amazing pieces.
What’s the Key? Post regularly (this goes for your blog too). You have to keep posting new content in order to give people a reason to come back. If there is never new information why would anyone want to follow you on Twitter or fan you on Facebook? So make sure that if you start to use Facebook or Twitter that you are updating regularily.
Important things to consider: how personal do you want to be? What is the “tone” of your online personality? What kind of content do you want to share? Will your audience want to know that you have kids running around the studio? Will they want to know where you went partying last night? Think about what you are going to share on these sites before your start posting. The issue with Facebook and Twitter is sometimes the lines between personal life and professional life become blurry and you don’t want to turn your audience off by over-sharing.
Here is a great post about Social Media Do’s and Don’ts.
Popular Social Media Sites include:
#3 Add Your Work to Other Online Websites.
Why? Because you want to be in as many places as possible. The more work you have online in different places the better. This is going to open doors and get your work into the eyes of new people.
What’s the Key? Having great images. These sites are about showcasing your work and without great images posting to these sites is going to be a waste of time. Take a look at our post about taking awesome pictures of your work.
Places to post your work include:
#4 Think about Opening an Online Shop …
Why? If you aren’t ready to approach a commercial gallery or if you would rather handle the sale of your work this is a great alternative. Selling your work online can also open doors to opportunities depending on who might stumble upon your shop.
What’s the Key? I’ll say it again great images! Having high quality images are going to make all the difference here. Also, being aware of how to safely and properly ship your work is important.
Where? Here are some sites where you can you to sell your work or build your own shop:
-Etsy
#5 Start Building Your Contact List and Create Newsletters.
Why? What better way to send out your exhibit invites? Or the new listings to your online store? Newsletters are a great way to let people know about your upcoming events, new work and blog posts. Here is a great post with 23 Things to Talk about in Your Art Newsletter.
How? Building a newsletter can be really simple if you use an email newsletter provider like Mail Chimp (our personal fav.), Campaing Monitor or Constant Contact. All of these providers make it easy for you to add buttons to your website/blog and Facebook page so people can sign-up to your newsletter.
I hope these five essential online tools help you to build your online presence and get your work out to a new group of people!
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RECENT NEWS: NEW RESIDENTS, INTERNS & APPRECIATION FOR SLEEP
Katie Bruce taking an embossment of our floor
This week was packed full and left Kyle and I feeling a bit under the weather.
The week started with us happily welcoming our new residents Katie Bruce and Jane Wiseheart.
Katie Bruce joins us from Alberta and will be working on her delicate modified embossment pieces. This week she took an embossment of our living room floor and has started the embroidery element.
- Jane Wiseheart’s Stencils for her silkscreen print
Jane Wiseheart, from Boston, drew out the stencils for her first silkscreen piece. If you think this part looks great wait until you see it with glitter! That’s right she “glitterfies” each work.
Intern Nick Taylor working on our new promo material
We also started working with our new graphic design intern Nick Taylor. Nick is a student at St. Lawrence College, he will be working with us for the next couple of weeks. This week he started putting together a new series of promotional material for our workshops, curio shop and open studio.
We got up to a number of other things this week like saying farewell to former Oeno Gallery staff member Ivan Tanzer who is off to work at the Galerie de Bellefeuille in Montreal and hanging some of our new work at Angeline’s Inn for their photo shoot with Toronto Life.
As I mentioned before all of this activity left us both feeling a bit under the weather but I found some links that made me want to drink a big glass of OJ and get working:
-This awesome design magazine Udo Mag.
-Nell Casson’s inspiration for the mural painting for the outside of the studio– Steve Powers.
-My Pinterest Board for Green Spaces (I have also been working in the yard a lot recently … can’t wait to plant our garden)!
-This hilarious and awesome tumblr site by magazine editor Ann Friedman (found on Cup of Jo).
I hope this week is productive and fun!
-Chrissy
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RECENT NEWS: WORKSHOPS, WOODCUTS & TRAMPOLINES
I can’t believe it’s Wednesday and I am just now getting to our post about last week. As you can probably imagine it was packed full (mostly of marking student work for final grades). We had three great residents staying with us last week– Kristy Lynn, Tamara Sponder and Genna Kusch, an etching workshop, Loyalist marking and a kids birthday party!
Fox Drop by Kristy Lynn
Cosmic Honey, Books Series, Kristy Lynn
Last week was Kristy Lynn’s final week with us. She decided to add a little printmaking to the mix and finished two editions in silkscreen. Her prints turned out great (you can see them at the studio in our Curio Shop). We were really impressed the the number of pieces she completed while at the studio. While I was going through the updates she made to her website I noticed the image above, a page from her notebook, which made me feel so happy about the our home and studio.
Woodcut by Genna Kusch and Tamara Sponder
Woodcut by Genna Kusch and Tamara Sponder
Genna and Tamara, both friends from Queen’s, came down to work on a number of projects for the week. They had started a woodcut at the studio two years ago and finally completed it, they also began an installation project which I am curating with them and finally Tamara worked on a series of etching for her Littlest Print Exchange submission.
Workshop with Trenton High School
Workshop with Trenton High School
Near the end of the week we hosted the second half of the Trenton High School Etching Workshop. During this half the students came to the studio to print their etched copper plates. We taught them about the etching process, the inking process and how to use the intaglio press. They each had the chance to work with two different colours and chine-colle. All the students left with at least 6 – 8 prints. We were contacted afterwards by the teacher with a biggest thank you email and an invitation to be the keynote speakers at the school Art Awards (so nice).
To top it all off we got some time in on my nieces new trampoline when Kyle and I (plus two of the residents) went to her third birthday party.
Links for this week:
- I am hoping to get as good as these kids on the trampoline.
- I want to write a convincing letter to Printeresting so we can get a free can of their Gamblin Ink.
- This post made me pretty excited about planting a garden this year.
- I really love the paintings of Jules De Balincourt!
What a great week!
-Chrissy
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COMMUNITY PRINTSHOP: BOOKS
We are always using books as reference here at the studio. They are great resources for workshops, inspiration and trouble-shooting. Here are three of our favourite printmaking books.
The Printmaking Bible
This book lives up to its title covering intaglio, screen print, relief print, monoprint and chine-colle. It is packed full of step-by-step guides, 1,000′s of full colour images and tool/material lists. Sadly, it focuses on traditional (toxic) materials, most of which we don’t use in our studio. We still use this book during workshops to give students a quick guide to what they will be learning. What I love most about this book is the example images. They use contemporary artists to illustrate the processes and all of the images are in full colour.
Print Liberation
This is a really fun book about screen printing. It covers both DIY printing and commercial printing. There is a fun little history section that I love using in workshops. They also included pre-made stencils which not only work as great examples but can be used by someone trying screen print for the first time.
Print Workshop
This is a more recent addition to our resource library. Like the Printmaking Bible this book is packed full of different techniques ranging from relief printing to solar fabric printing, however, unlike the Printmaking Bible this book is all about DIY culture. This book simplifies the processes, highlights the beauty of imperfections found in handmade prints and creates a fun, DIY atmosphere around each process. This approach makes this the ideal book for kids workshops and workshops we don’t host in our studio.
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RECENT NEWS: NEW RESIDENTS & CITY OF CRAFT
Works in Progress by Kristy Lynn
Works in Progress by Sylvia Chan
This has been such a fun week. The weather was amazing and I felt inspired and productive. Early in the week we picked up our two new residents Kristy Lynn and Sylvia Chan. Both have been amazingly productive over the week resulting in a studio full of new paintings.
Works in Progress, New Linocut Prints by Kyle Topping
Kyle and I have both been putting a lot of focus on creating our own work. It’s amazing how challenging it can be to get into the studio. Kyle printed his vintage camera series early in the week (they will be going up on Etsy shortly) and began a new series of reductive linocut vintage trailers. I have been working on a new series of bags inspired by my trip around North America in 2008 (finally putting those pictures to use)!
Last week we also went to City of Craft in Toronto. It was so nice to head out of Picton for a day in the city. Ever since meeting Jen Anisef, creator of Toronto Craft Alert and former organizer for City of Craft, Kyle and I have all become interested in participating in sale. When I found out there was a spring sale I was set on heading to Toronto to check it out. It was a rainy day but a nice afternoon of visiting some of my favorite regional makers:
*Kid Icarus who had these awesome 3D posters of flying Canadian Geese.
*Raymond E. Biesinger who had funky large scale geographic prints of different cities.
*JP King and Kirsten McCrea who had many great prints, postcards and little books of poetry.
* Lines by Davis who had his kitty cat printed bags and textiles, plus these new wax canvas bags (which I loved!).
*Bookhou who had their collection of clean and simply designed textiles (the large pouches are my favorite).
*Field Guided who had a selection of lovely silk scarves along with tote bags and prints.
Hope you had a great week too!
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BUSINESS OF ART: THE HOBBIES OF THE ARTIST.
This week the Business Blog Vault brings us this question:
“When art becomes your job, do artists get ‘unartistic’ hobbies to distract from work?”
Perhaps the word “unartistic” wasn’t the best, but I think this question is an interesting one. Part of my interest stems from the fact that this implies that art is a hobby. Being an artist, an arts administrator and the owner of an artist-run-space I have never really seen art as a hobby. To me it was always a career choice, even if I couldn’t always do it as my main source of income. I was curious how other artists felt about this question so I posed it to two practicing artists– one a crafter/illustrator/painter and the other a painter/printmaker/performance artist.
Let’s start with the painter, printmaker and performance artist Alice Teichert. I met Alice while working as the assistance curator at Oeno Gallery. Alice was born in Paris and raised in Brussels, she studied music, visual poetry, visual arts and printmaking in Belgium and France. Her interest in North American abstract painting led her to continue studies in the USA and Canada, where she has been living since 1984. Alice has built an international career with exhibitions of her work in France, Canada, Switzerland and Australia. In response to the question Alice wrote:
“To me the word ‘unartistic’ does not make any sense. Art making to me is definitely not merely just ‘a job’ or a profession, but a life commitment. This kind of work is beyond a ‘ job’ designation . Besides I find myself in constant communication with my art practice which ever I turn, wherever I am … and I seem to carry over my artistic/ creative sense into whatever else I do. I have no need to distract myself from my art making practice, rather I find myself not having enough hours in a day to be able to do what I would want to do in a day … Art making is a journey and has its own rhythm. In connection to my art practice I choose to complement/ balance my life with other creative activities such as cooking, gardening, travelling and recently beekeeping … All these aspects make a full journey, … hm, not sure that I would want to call these other creative activities ‘hobbies’ … they are just other aspects that make my life. I do not differentiate one area from another as everything is connected to create a whole life experience.”
Cute Owl by Kirsten McCrea
Our second artist is painter, illustrator, entrepreneur and crafter (also a past resident) Kirsten McCrea. Kirsten is a Canadian artist with a penchant for pop culture, politicos, and patterns. Continuing on the “P” theme, she is also the Founder & Director of Papirmasse, an affordable art subscription that delivers a monthly art print to people around the world. When not painting on her own Kirsten illustrates and makes collaborative art with Cease and En Masse. As you can see she is up to many things, which is why I thought her perspective on this topic would be an interesting one. To top it all off her partner, JP King, is also a practicing artist. Here was her response:
“This question strikes really close to home – it is one that my partner and I talk about A LOT. We are both artists, and also both workaholics. I’ve been making art as my full-time job for the last three years, and JP works in a related industry during the day, and then makes his own art at night. We talk about art CONSTANTLY. This winter we were craft-fairing every week, and I began to fear that our relationship was devolving into a string of questions about where to source bags and who would get the float money. I actually wondered if we were capable of having a conversation that was not craft-fair related.
So sometimes I ask myself: why do I work all the time? Which then leads immediately to wondering: *Am I* working all the time??? It’s hard to know, because when you do what you love it doesn’t necessarily feel like “work”. For a large portion of every day I am answering e-mails and doing boring art admin stuff, so when I actually get a chance to sit down and paint, it doesn’t feel like work at all. Making art is what ends up feeling like my “off” time. BUT – this can lead to an unhealthy pattern of doing admin work all day, art work all night, and then realizing that you haven’t seen your friends in weeks and can only talk about boring art career stuff with your spouse (really, it’s boring. I promise).
There are a lot of other things I like doing: bike riding, going to the gym, reading, cooking, going out dancing. Being an artist is hard because you have no boss and it’s up to you how much you get done in a day. If you’re like me and have unrealistic expectations about how much you can actually accomplish in a 16-hour period, you may very well find yourself sacrificing hobbies because you feel guilty for not having made more art (and are always aware of how prolific your most admired peers seem to be…).
I have very consciously FORCED myself to take up non-art related hobbies this year. Honestly, anything that is art-related just couldn’t be called a hobby for me. But running isn’t going to build my art practice, nor is going out for beer, nor is reading fiction or going to visit a new part of town – which is why I am trying really hard this year to grant myself permission to do several hours of those things every week.
It’s not necessarily a distraction from work, but it is a way to feel like a more normal, balanced human being. I got totally sucked into an “art all the time” vortex for two years, and I am happy to have other aspects to my life now.”
Conclusion, artists seem to live, breath and talk art. What I found even more interesting was that the “hobby activities” that both of these women enjoy are still creative. I guess this means the answer is “no”. What also seemed to come out of this question was that creative people are driven, organized and constantly thinking about their practice. Perhaps being a practicing artist isn’t about having a job or a hobby but about having a lifestyle.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you think of art as a hobby? We would love to hear your comments.
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PAST RESIDENT: NAVA ASTRACHAN
Haunted
Vanitas 2
Israel painter Nava Astrachan stayed with us in February, 2012. Nava made the decision to re-visit etching during her residency stay and combined production with private workshops. The traditional imagery used in Nava’s work was perfect for etching. Her attention to detail and commitment to drawing resulted in rich prints. During her two weeks Nava completed three different plates, each with multiple etchings and aquatint. My favorite of the group was of a Russian ballet dancer because of its tight composition and range of tones.
Modern Dance Group
Pregnant (clothed)
Pregnant Girls
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RECENT NEWS: NEW WORK, WORKSHOPS AND ART SPACES
Last week Kyle and I started getting to work on new items for our Etsy Shop and Spark Box Curio Shop. Kyle printed several more of our Printing Press prints, inspired by our very own 1854 lithography Press (kindly loaned to us by printmaker Otis Tamasauskas).
Kyle also got to work on a new series of prints based on vintage cameras. He had carved a really great linocut print for this series last year but has since been working on four images which will be screen printed. I am also putting together a new series of bags which will combine my love for pattern with my interest in quilting!
Along with making some new printed goods we attended the Loyalist College Art & Design Foundations annual year end exhibition. It was such a pleasure to see the work of our students put up on display. I still can’t believe our first year of teaching is almost over.
Speaking of teaching we also gave the first of two workshops in etching to one of the Trenton High School art classes last week. In this workshop we gave the class a demo into the wax application process, plate preparation and image making process. We love doing these high school workshops. We gather all the students around a desk with prints from our members and ourselves laid out on the table. Students get a chance to look at actual work, touch actual plates and really engage with the process. Can’t wait to have them at the studio on the 27th. If you ever want to learn about any of the processes we offer at the studio please feel free to contact us (chrissy@sparkboxstudio.com).
On Saturday we attended the opening of The Baxter Building, one of Prince Edward County’s newest creative centres. The space is still in its planning phase but based on Saturdays attendance the community is in full support. The opening included live entertainment, a display about the buildings history, renovation plans and an inspiration board where community members could put forth their ideas for how the space could be used.
Last week also included some pretty great online art finds:
- Tony Orrico’s performance drawings
- Awesome new art publication from Little Paper Planes
- My new Behance page with my watercolour work posted (shameless plug)
- A great resource for contemporary Toronto painters
Hope this week is as great as last week!
-Chrissy
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PRINT SHOP HOW-TO: RE-STRETCH YOUR SILKSCREEN FRAME
Not too long ago Chrissy and I purchased a hand silk screen stretcher online. I think we were both in agreement that shipping ripped screens to Toronto to have another company re-stretch and ship them back to us was becoming a hassle and too expensive. We purchased our stretcher from a company call ASC365. I’ve recently gone through the process of re-stretching 20 silkscreen frames and wanted to take a moment to share my experience. Even before we begin I’d like to mention that this tool is fantastic and I recommend it.
How to re-stretch mesh onto an aluminum frame:
1. First, take the broken screen and cut a ‘plus’ sign into the mesh. I found that this gave me a good starting point to ripping the mesh off. When I tried using a X cut from corner to corner, it left a lot of remaining screen debris towards the corners. Rip the mesh along one edge towards the corner, then rip the other edge towards the same corner, now rip the corner section off. Repeat this for all the edges.
2. You may see that there are bits of mesh still remaining glued down near the corner, try to remove what you can by picking at it and hopefully you can pull it off. I found that using a utility knife helped in removing the last bits. Don’t worry too much if there is some remaining, when we grind the frame it’ll come off.
3. If you can, go outside and set-up a work table. You will be grinding aluminum and thus creating dust, so doing this process inside the studio was a big ‘no go’. You will need several tools. A metal grinder with a grinding disk, palm sander with 80-120 grid sand paper, particle respirator (not a dust mask, a real respirator, protect your lungs), gloves, clamps, and safety goggles.
4. I clamped the screen down to the table, and begun lightly grinding the frame. The idea is to remove all the glue off the frame and at the same time give the frame tooth to accept a new layer of glue. When you’re grinding the frame you’ll want to be careful not to spend too much time in one spot otherwise you may grind a pit into the frame, and that’s not good.
5. Afterward I used the palm sander to quickly run around the whole frame, this cleaned up some (not all) ink stains, hardened emulsions, or weird glue deposits from tape. When finished rub the frame clean with a rag.
6. Set-up a large station inside, I had to push to a couple desks together. I recommend that you avoid using the floor as a work surface, the mesh is oddly charged with static electricity and will pick up all the dirt off the floor. The stretcher we bought came disassembled in 8 pieces and was really easy to build following the manufacturers instruction.
7. Once the system is set-up and the frame in place, coat the frame with a layer of glue. We purchased the glue from the same company that sold us the stretcher, it is clearly an extremely strong contact cement. I recommend that you open a window and wear a vapor rated respirator mask.
8. It takes 8-10 minutes for the glue to become ‘dry to the touch’. At this point lock into the stretcher your desired new mesh. Crank all the clamps down onto the mesh and begin stretching each side a little bit at a time. You can buy a tension meter which will tell you exactly what tension of the screen is or I compared the tension to another commercially stretched screen we had in the studio.
9. When you’re happy with the tension cut a piece of cardboard slightly smaller than the interior of the frame and place it on the screen. Now apply a second layer of glue to the frame. The cardboard prevents any stringy bits of glue from falling onto the middle of the screen. Like I mentioned earlier the screen has a lot of static electricity and so it tends to attract the stingy glue. Once done let the frame sit for 25 minutes.
10. When you loosen all the clamps and remove your newly stretched frame cut off the excess screen mesh. Finally, use metal foil tape (purchased from a hardware store in the duct working aisle ) to cover the glued side of the screen. That’s it, finished.
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BUSINESS OF ART: ART IN CANADA
This week the Business of Art vault brought this question:
Where is contemporary art being made in Canada?
To this I say: Everywhere.
Contemporary art is being made all over the country. There isn’t one geographic area where it is all happening. What this question made me realize is that maybe there isn’t a great resource showcasing some of the amazing things happening in the Canadian art scene. I have compiled a short list of some of the awesome Canadian writers, bloggers, spaces and artists that I visit or support.
- The MOCCA: The mandate of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art is to exhibit, research, collect, and promote innovative art by Canadian and international artists whose works engage and address challenging issues and themes relevant to our times. I always catch really great shows here when I visit Toronto, Ontario.
- Magic Pony: Magic Pony is dedicated to the exhibition and promotion of the best in young contemporary art. We operate as a studio, gallery and retail environment, combining elements of art, design and popular culture to create a unique shopping experience. This is an amazing place to find new and exciting young Canadian artists. Tt is always on my list of places to stop into while visiting Toronto, Ontario.
- Toronto Craft Alert: A great resource for crafters and craft enthusiasts this site lists upcoming sales, calls for submissions, educational opportunities and featured articles about amazing crafters from all over.
- The Hamilton Art Crawl: Hamilton is starting to make a name for itself in the Canadian art scene, making their monthly art crawl must see event.
- Forest City Gallery: FCG’s mandate is to serve as a forum for local, regional, national and international artists through the presentation of relevant contemporary practices in visual/media arts, performance, literature and music. A great space offering interesting exhibitions and events in London, Ontario.
- Modern Fuel: Modern Fuel aims to meet the professional development needs of emerging and mid-career local, national and international artists, from diverse cultural communities, through exhibition, discussion, and mentorship opportunities. This is a great gallery space in Kingston, Ontario showcasing many talented Canadian artists.
- En Masse: Montreal, Quebec based art initiative EN MASSE is best described as an ongoing exercise in irreverent, improvised collaborative drawing — a boundary-blurring cocktail of high and lowbrow culture, pop imagery fragmented like shattered glass in a spontaneous, multi-genre, black-on-white collision.
- Poppytalk Handmade: Poppytalk is a Canadian (Vancouver, British Columbia based) design blog collecting inspiration and dedicated to promoting emerging design talent. I visit this site regularly for inspiration.
- Booooooom: Amazing art blog from Vancouver, British Columbia artist Jeff Hamada. Booooooom was created in the hopes of fostering a community of people excited to go out and be creative! This blog is great for learning about contemporary artists from Canada.
- Khyber Art Centre: The Khyber, est. 1995, is a non-profit, artist-run centre located in an historic, three-story building in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia. The centre presents contemporary art exhibitions, artist lectures, panel discussions, performances and offers art classes to youth.
- Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art: Located in Winnipeg, Manitoba the Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art is a nationally recognized leader in Aboriginal arts programming and one of the foremost venues and voices for Aboriginal art in Canada.
- Art Central: About Art Central is a visual art complex at the corner of Centre Street and 7th Avenue in downtown Calgary, Alberta. Art Central aspires to be the axis of the visual art scene in Calgary: the place where artists conjoin with galleries and art aficionados, the stimulus for the production of excellence, innovation, and new ideas, the place where art intersects with the community, enlarging its experience and enhancing its perception of art.
- UPPERCASE Magazine: Another great source of information surrounding talented people from all over, Uppercase Magazine is a quarterly craft, fashion, illustration, and design journal published by Janine Vangool in Calgary, Alberta.
I would love to hear of any other places (as I am sure there are many) so please feel free to add your favorite Canadian art place, space or person to our comments section.
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PAST RESIDENTS: LAUREN WICKWARE & COLLETTE BROEDERS
Industrial Vestiges No. 4, 2011, Collette Broeders
These two women did not come to the residency together, in fact they weren’t even staying here at the same time, but they were two of our short-term residents. Unlike some residencies we offer weekend and week-long residency stays. Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Hamilton and a ton of other great places (with great artists) are so close by that it can be a nice getaway for an artist. Plus, being two busy entrepreneurs, we understand how hard and frustrating it can be when a place you really want to check out only offers 3 year residency stays.
Collette Broeders and Lauren Wickware were two artists who stayed with us for a short period of time, but in that time made some really great pieces. They also showed us that with enough prep you can accomplish a lot in only a few days.
Remnant Stains No. 1, Collette Broeders
Industrial Vestiges No. 2, Collette Broeders
Collette visited our residency in 2010 and worked on a number of printed pieces. Her work was expressive and utilized a variety of techniques. The focus of her work is to investigate themes involving identity, culture and memory. (check out the post Collette wrote sharing her experience at Spark Box here >>)
Omnibus Albatross, Lauren Wickware
Jon Sasaki: Good Intentions, Lauren Wickware
Lauren, a professional graphic designer, came to work with on a few screen printed pieces. While I enjoyed the printed work she completed my favorite work of Lauren’s are her publications. As mentioned in her bio she has a knack for translating abstract ideas into sophisticated and accessible designs.
Jeff Harris "3,653 Self Portraits", Lauren Wickware
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RECENT NEWS: SHOP UPDATE & EASTER CRAFT IDEAS
This was a great week for getting finished projects that have been lingering for some time now. A few months ago we decided to invest in silkscreen re-stretching equipment and Kyle has been re-stretched all of our screens. Silkscreen is an amazing process and we use it a lot so the screens get ruined pretty quickly. We used to have to send them away to Toronto to be repaired but now we have the ability to fix them anytime they wear out.
We also added some new pieces to our shop. We really want to make our little store a place to come and find great handmade goods. We have been putting a strong effort into making the store more interesting and inviting. We have also added two new artists to our shop, Tamara Sponder and Genna Kusch. It will be open all spring and summer so feel free to stop in!
This week has also been great for workshops and family. We participated in the Albert College art week and it was a great experience. We offered a two hour workshop on linocut prints and each student made two or more prints with multiple colours. They will be having their annual Student Art Exhibition on April 15th where some of the students will be showing work done during the art week. If you are in the Belleville area be sure to check it out.
I had a great morning finding chocolate eggs with my 2 yr. old niece at the local Easter Egg Hunt held by the fire department. It was so nice to be outside on such a sunny day watching my niece run around searching for eggs. If you are celebrating Easter with your family this weekend here are some fun craft ideas I found that would be great to do together:
- Marbleizes Easter Eggs from Martha Stewart
- Oragami Rabbit Tutorial from Happy Folding
- Egg Shell Brownies from La Receta de la Felicidad
Hope you all have a great holiday weekend!
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-Chrissy
BUSINESS OF ART: SOCIAL POWER OF ART
This week from the Business of Art Question Vault:
“Are the arts accessible enough for artists to further society and culture?”
Wow … heavy. I wish I would have kept better record of which applicant asked which question. I really see this question as two questions– one being “is art accessible?” and the second being “can art still be used to effect society and culture?”.
In response to accessibility I think it is more a question about education and the importance placed on art by the community. If people are educated at a young age about art and the community they live in is supportive of the arts then they are much more likely to support artistic expression and venues. I don’t think it is about art being accessible. Art is never inaccessible. By this I mean that anyone can go to a gallery or a museum, anyone can go to the theatre or music venue and anyone can go to a book store … but … do you know enough about art to feel comfortable going to any of these places?
I do think that the internet has allowed artistic expression to become more accessible. Sites like Youtube or Vimeo have open the doors for artists to get their work out to the public. The internet has helped many young creative entrepreneurs promote and sell their products through sites like Etsy. People are being given the opportunity to understand creative processes through blogs and how-to videos. It is a great time to be a creative person because of these tools. Creative people now have a platform where they can educate the public about the value of handmade goods.
Let’s move onto the second half of this question– can art result in change? Another huge topic. My personal opinion is yes. I do think that art has the power to effect people, make someone consider something in a new or different way and encourage people to make changes in their life or community. I think the easiest way to illustrate this point is through a few examples.
- I recently watched a Vice TV series about Palestinian filmmaking. The series focuses on a young man working towards educating Palestinian youth about the power of film. The series explains how some Palestinians are using film as an expression of what it is like to grow up in the camps. Obviously Vice has a lot of critics and there are different sides to the Palestinian situation … I am not trying to take a stand with this reference I simply think this series was an interesting showcase of how people living in the Palestinian camps are using film to communicate their experiences.
- On a much less political note I would like to reference a TED Talk by Ze Frank. I watch a lot of TED Talks and one that stands out in relation to this topic is Ze Frank’s 2010 talk, specifically the collaborative music projects. Ze does many interested and weird online collaborative projects but his song written for Laura (mentioned at the end of this talk) was composed of voices from people all over the world telling Laura that “Hey, you’re ok. You’ll be fine. Just breath.”. The idea that strangers came together, took time out of their day, to participate in a creative group collaboration to benefit a stranger is pretty powerful.
- This article on Hyperallergic titled “Can Art Create World Change?” talks about three artists, Claudy Jongstra, Vik Muniz and Olafur Eliasson, who’s work directly effects their local village, their country or many areas around the world.
I hope these artists properly illustrate just some of the power creativity can hold in today’s society. If you have examples of how artists have effected you or your community please post a comment below.
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PAST RESIDENT: JOSH DANNIN
- “!!!”, Linocut, 2010
- “Not My Cup of Tea”, Linocut, 2011
In September 2011 we hosted Philadelphia printmaker Josh Dannin at the residency. He stayed with us for a month and worked on two relief print pieces. Josh’s work “has evolved to feature a series of relief prints that comment on social and political turmoil. Much of [his] work touches on contemporary political gridlock and the absurdity of such a thing. In the form of dictator-like portraits, satirical caricatures, and bold text, [he] references the turbulent times of today. Citing words made famous by dystopian writers such as George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, [he] is intrigued by how the themes these authors address increasingly parallel modern society. What originated as fiction has, in certain aspects, become reality.”
"Granny Smith", Linocut, 2011
“Not My Cup of Tea” and “Granny Smith” were the final pieces done by Josh at the studio. These works reflect some of his recent work which has “…grown increasingly fascinated by the topic of evolution, and where it falls in political discourse. The close relationship between humans and chimpanzees is one that is confirmed by science yet remains debated among ideologies. The clash of Darwinism and Creationism, among other absurd political arguments, will act as a platform for future projects, in which he intends to experiment with print-based installation works.”
"Banana Republican", Woodcut, 2011
"Theory Of...", Linocut, 2011
Josh was a great resident and has remained a really good friend. Two weeks ago we had the chance to see the BFT Wolfbat project he worked on in New Orleans while we were down attending the Southern Graphics Conference (to read about that project click here >>). We hope to have Josh back to work in the studio again soon and wish him good luck with his MFA program he recently was accepted to.
"Wolfbat Box Car", Bill Fick, Carter Eggleston, and Josh Dannin, 2012
Wolfbat Box Car", Bill Fick, Carter Eggleston, and Josh Dannin, 2012
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RANDOM THOUGHTS & ONLINE FINDS: MAPLE IN THE COUNTY
Image from Bay of Quinte Country
This weekend is Prince Edward County’s annual Maple in the County. This event is so much fun. How can you go wrong driving around this beautiful county visiting farmers and eating sugar? Thousands of people visit the area for this event. It is a weekend filled with pancakes, maple candies and learning about rural Ontario agriculture.
We will be opening the store during Maple in the County and hope that if you are visiting the Stone’s Maple Syrup you might stop in and say “hi”.
RECENT EVENTS: SGCI NEW ORLEANS
Last week I went on the road to New Orleans for the South Graphics Conference. This was the first time attending this conference, actually this was the first conference Spark Box Studio has ever attended, needless to say I was pretty excited. Sadly, since we had residents booked in I had to make this trip alone, which meant a lot of long days and lonely travelling. Lucky for me tons of like-minded printers attend this event every year so the loneliness was short lived.
The trip began early Thursday with a 4 am drive to the Toronto airport. With just one minor hang-up with customs, I was quickly jet-setting to Louisiana. I arrived early afternoon, dropped my publisher booth stuff off and headed to my accommodations (which I found on Air BnB). The rest of Thursday was made up of searching for groceries and relaxing on the roof top of the loft I was staying in.
Friday was day one of the conference. Spark Box had a booth in the publishers fair so I left early to set-up my table. I took a walk through the beautiful, yet very smelly, French Quarter to the Sheraton Hotel where the conference was being held. I was the first publisher to arrive … which made me feel like a silly eager Canadian. But my eager attitude paid off leading me to meet so many nice people and share information to them about our studio and residency. Because of that minor customs hiccup I wasn’t allowed to sell any prints … but I did get to speak about them and the great printmakers who created them. I was set-up near the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Program and got to met Chris Dunnett and Phil Sanders. I now hope that I will get some time to go to NYC and check out their space.
I left the publisher fair early that day to attend one of the demonstrations being held at Tulane University. The demonstration was being done by our university print professor Otis Tamasauskas. The drive to the demo was longer than I thought so I only caught the tail-end but made plans to go out with Otis later in the evening. We met up at the hotel and together with Gravity Press owner Brandon Graving we went to the evenings art walk. My camera died by this point so I didn’t get any pictures but the night was great. We stopped at the Community Print Shop, the exhibit at the Healing Center and Deborah Cornell and Barbara Putnam’s exhibit at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.
Saturday was another early morning walk to the hotel in order to re-set-up the publishers table (they moved us for day two). I decided the smell of the French Quarter at 7AM was a bit too much so instead I walked along the river. Day two of the publisher fair was held in conjunction with the portfolio sessions. It was a great day. I split my time standing at the table and walking around looking at all the amazing and talented printed works. Splitting time between the table and other events was a challenge since I was by myself but next year Kyle will attend as well and we will have more time to go to the lectures and demos.
Past resident Josh Dannin came by the booth just as I was packing up and we headed to the Wolfbat Railroad event that he had been participated in over the week. The BFT Wolfbat Railroad was another printmaking project going on at the same time as the Southern Graphics Conference but not in conjunction with it. Wolfbat Studios (Dennis McNett) & Woodcut Funhouse (Sean Starwars) teamed up with Vans Custom Culture to host a three day customization event that was 100% free and open to the public. As the organizers explained it “The event included the construction of a wooden train consisting of 1 steam engine & 20 box cars. Artist, educators, and college students from across the U.S. tricked out their boxcar with screen prints, woodcut prints, flags, paper mache structures, and what ever else they can come up with. Each artist or team worked with at least 2 local high school and/or middle school kids.”
Saturday evening was the culmination of this three day event and was celebrated by taking the train on parade through the Marigny/Bywater area. After the parade there was a party with a great brass band and tons of dancing printmakers. It was a great time and a wonderful way to end the weekends events.
Sunday was my last day in New Orleans and I spent most of the day hanging out with Josh. We did a ton of tourist like things – walk through the French Quarter market, check out all the great street performers, eat beignets at Cafe du Monde and walk around Bourbon Street. After Josh headed back to Philadelphia I went to the botanical gardens with my accommodations host Andrea and then out to dinner.
It was a great trip and I am happy that we decided to participate in the events this year. We are definitely going next year in Milwaukee.
-Chrissy
THE JOY OF KITCHEN LITHOGRAPHY
As you know Kyle and I made the choice to make our studio as safe and green as possible, so there are some processes, like stone lithography, that we can’t offer at the studio. Of course stone lithography happens to be my favorite print process. So, you can only imagine my joy when I stumbled across a video by French artist Emilion explaining a new technique called “Kitchen Litho”. In the video Emilion walks you through her process of drawing with a grease tool (in this case soap made with animal fats) onto tin foil, etching the image with Coke and printing it like you would a litho stone.
I was amazed at how simple she made the process look and excited to get into the studio and give it a try. I called on a few former workshop participants and a couple friends to see if they would be interested in trying this new method with me and the six of us got together a few weekends ago.
We started our afternoon of experimental printmaking in the kitchen, as to keep with the theme of the process, but seeing little success moved out into the studio in order to use the printing press. Unlike the video the process was a bit more challenging. Like stone lithography sometimes your image doesn’t etch into the tin foil or it begins to fill in after a couple prints. However, unlike with stones you can simple crumple up the tin foil and try again– quick and easy!
We experimented with a number of different drawing tools to see what worked the best. We tried lithography crayons, sharpie markers, touche and Crisco. We wanted to see the different textures we could achieve and if spending the money on lithography crayons was worth it. It turned out that sharpie marker was the most reliable tool while the lithography crayons were a close second.
While achieving a print was challenging, the process itself was amazingly easy. Draw your image on the tin foil, etch it with Coke, rub it with vegetable oil, ink it and print (see the whole process in the video on Emilion’s blog). After a great afternoon several of us left with a some good prints and I plan to keep experimenting with this process in the future.
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BUSINESS OF ART: CROWDFUNDING
We recently attending an event organized by the Kingston Arts Council called Building Artist Communities. This event was a public forum in which the participants were seated, in groups, at different “topic” tables. Each topic addressed an issue found in most art communities– collaboration, funding, communication, space, etc. The event asked for each person to answer two questions in response to their tables “topic” and as a group discuss the answers. For example, Kyle and I sat at the Funding Table where we responded to the questions based on the topic of funding and discussed with the group issues with funding for the local arts community.
It was a question brought up with this group which inspired me to write this post. It is a well-known fact that arts organizations and independent artists are often searching for funding to start projects, access space, etc. It is also known that the federal, provincial and municipal arts councils offer funding options but that this money is difficult to access because of the number of applicants and limited funds to disperse. The question asked was essentially, what other options do you we have as artists and arts organizations?
The first thing that came to my mind was crowdfunding, but to my surprise no one else at the table knew what this was. Obviously I realized this would be a perfect Business Art post as crowdfunding is a great way to access funds and use the amazing networking power of social media. Crowdfunding “describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.” (Wikipedia). As you can probably imagine this is an excellent way to get your ideas out to a large audience, heighten interest in your creative venture and gain support and funding from real people who are interested in what you are doing. I was going to do my best to explain crowdfunding but then I found a post on The Small Business Blog which provides much more insightful information about the process then I would have been able to. As well the Small Business Blog posted a link to the infographic found at the end of this post (just click the image below to make it larger), which was commissioned by PleaseFund.Us in collaboration with Crowdsourcing.org and designed by Dorothy Sanders of Sandfishdesign.co.uk, which provides all the information about this amazing funding opportunity. I want to thank Dorothy for allowing me to use her graphic to give you all a new way to think about fundraising and financing your creative projects!
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WORKSHOP: ETCHING WITH LOYALIST
For the past three years we have been given the opportunity to have the students of the Loyalist College Art and Design Foundations Program come to our studio to learn acrylic resist etching. As with prior years the workshop this February was a great success. There were over 30 people working in the studio but by having organized the space with inking station, drypoint stations, printing stations and drying stations each student had a chance to experiment and print a number of times.
With past workshops Kyle and I would prep all of the plates for the students, which meant cutting the copper, file the edges, degrease the copper and apply the hard ground resist. But since Kyle and I are teaching in the program this year we had the chance to show the class how to prep plates and coat them with the hard ground. Although this is not the most interesting part of the process it was great for us to share this step ( it is pretty crucial step to the etching process). There is always the fear with acrylic resist etching that degrease process was not done properly, potentially causing the hard ground not to adhere to the copper. Luckily each student did a great job applying their ground and not one plate was lost in the etching process.
The students had one week to draw their image onto their plates, after which they were brought to the studio where Kyle and I etched them and prepped them for printing. The workshop only ran for three hours and within that time 90 prints were made by the class.
*Above print done by Colleene Rowley
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THIS WEEK AT SPARK BOX
Carl Wiens’ silkscreen pieces are near completion with just one last layer. Can’t wait to see them all finished! Looking forward to seeing some more people working in the Open Studio including Nicole Armour. If you haven’t seen Nicole’s handmade books you really should take a look, they are beautiful! She also has a very insightful blog about books, movies, music and friendship called The We of Me.
We are excited to start another month and invite new people into our home and studio. On Wednesday we picked up our newest resident coming to us from Israel and staying for two weeks. Nava Astrachan will be working on three etchings during her stay. (image below taken from HERE).
On Thursday Kyle and I got to see all of our work up at the John M. Parrott Art Gallery and share the moment with our friends and family. The evening was a success and we were so happy to see friendly faces out for an evening in Belleville to support us and our work.
The end of this week finds the end of Sarah Burwash’s residency with us. It has been great having Sarah at the studio. I love her work and will be sad to see her go. I mean just look at this map she made of the area … awesome!
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