This one is going somewhere. No clue where exactly, but going, yeah…
Associations, connotations, connections..
A walkthrough of the EBA Open/Not open Studio exhibit with Bill Staubi
This video is a recording from the zoom event titled “Musings” that the EBA set up to present the walkthrough of this pandemic years’ EBA Open Studio exhibit, which had to stay virtual.
Bill Staubi, longtime member and administrator of the EBA takes us along the corridors of the building to introduce and comment on the artworks on display. Enjoy!
How visual art and poetry match
For this past Open Studio event at the Enriched Bread Artists studios, we invited Grant Wilkins, printer, papermaker, small press publisher and poet in (and of) Ottawa to let himself be inspired by the works, and words, of the EBA artists.
The artists that came forward to have their imagery moulded into letters and sound are: Sarah Anderson, Taylor Boileau Davidson, Patricia Kenny, Juliana McDonald, Christos Pantieras, Mana Rouholamini, Daniel Sharp, Svetlana Swinimer, Joyce Westrop and yours truly.
We sent him images and our “artists’ statement” to work with.
Artist statements. I hate them. They are more often than not a forced, cramped effort to fit into some illusion of what art should be about, using words that are overused yet only half understood. In my personal opinion, artists’ statements are too often a blight onto the work and psyche of the artist involved and it would be good if the art world would do away with them. It would be a happy thing, if artists statements would be simply poetry instead.
But in an art world that is built of smoke and mirrors, the artists statement is both mirror and smoke alike. Many of us need them.
He came up with some wonderful short poems for all of us. He read the colours and assembled the materials, he even threw in a Patti Smith song. He kindly read the poems out for this project. These soundclips as well as the written text can be found on the EBA website here: Poetic Constructions , an Art poetry project by the EBA and Grant Wilkins.
If I might advise you: do listen to the poems. Poetry, already magic when read, works even better when heard.
The poems I would like to highlight here are the poem done for Joyce Westrop, a delightful example of ‘Mesostics’ a style form I was unfamilar with, where he put the name of the artist in a line in the middle and built his words around it.
In his poem for Christos Pantieras’ work, it is as if he rummaged through the heaps of concrete letters and put them on a grid to form his poetry.
In his poem about Mana Rouholamini’s work, the words flow as the ink and the water does in her images.
And lastly, for my oversaturated colours in this oversaturated world he wrote:
Just in case you are now thinking: hey, but what about that Patti Smith song? What does that have to do with this poetry? It was highlighted in Ottawa Life Magazine here.
(The song in question is titled “Horses” and this is the live version that I posted. Our human world is interconnections incarnate: the more connections and associations we make the stronger our soul becomes)
To further ground this project, Grant Wilkins had a conversation with Petra Halkes, an Ottawa based artists, art critic and art writer. The short recap of that conversation -just under 12 minutes- can be found here:
The long version is to be found on the EBA webpage.
This poetry event was one of those instances where the challenges posed by the Covid pandemic to this years Open Studio resulted into a very nice project that otherwise might not have been thought of. I am happy to have been included!
Come see the Enriched Bread Artists building from the inside!
Without entering the building!
Part of the online events that the Enriched Bread Artists organises this autumn is a 360 tour of the building and the artists’ studios. In every studio and communal space a 360 panorama photo was made -oftentimes more than one- and these were cobbled together to make it possible for online visitors to see all the studios from the inside. Floor and ceilings included!
There are also surprises added to the tour; in every studio there are clickable elements which lead you to maybe a close up of an additional work, or a timelapse of the artist making art, or a detail from the materials or tools they are working with, or even video and sound.
Go see if you can find the forgotten space, the sock song, the moving sculpture, the plastic soup in the sea, the inside of the big loom that one of our artists works with, and, of course, Hannah Arendt, who makes an appearance in my studio. (In the only video I could find online that has english subtitles and is not two hours long!)
You will also notice in my studio the sounds that the old, steam powered heating unit makes in winter and the ruckus of the cranes and full grown toy trucks that rummage outside my window, where a new light train station is being built.
Very welcome to wander here: The EBA virtual tour.
Do note that the first page will take some time to load. If you are unsure how to digitally navigate, I hope this picture below helps:
The site will take a moment to load. It first takes you to a greyed out image depicting the EBA building, which will turn into a 360 photo of the entrance automatically. When this 360 image appears, you can navigate through the images of building by either clicking on the arrows that appear, or by clicking on the thumbnail that depicts a floor plan, and go to the various spaces directly. Enjoy!
Ottawa Life Magazine spreads the word
The Virtual Open Studio launches tomorrow, as well as the pick up of the art surprise boxes, which sold out within 3 days!
One of the inkdrawings that will be in the art surprise box.
The Open not Open Studio of the EBA in 2020: Reality Revisited / Realité Revue
The summer has come and gone, the numbers have peaked and dipped, measures have been instated, withdrawn and reinstated… and now autumn is upon us. Traditionally, the Enriched Bread artists collective that I am now a member of, organises its yearly Open Studio event in October.
But should we open up in this year of Corona? After exploring the different scenario’s in which we could open, or maybe not open on top of a heated debate about the pro’s and cons of opening or staying closed, it was decided to remain closed to the public. Instead, we reach out to our community online and through curbside pick up!
Enter the box, our curbside pick up project for this years’ “Open Studio” Every member who is willing - that turned out to be nineteen in total - donates ten artworks to the box. They range from prints to photographs to parts of installations to original artworks and fit in a 30 x 30 x 12 cms / 12 x 12 x 5 inch box. My contribution is ten 20 x 12 cms/ 8 x 5 inches original ink drawings! Added to the box will be vouchers from our local sponsors, many of whom have supported the EBA in the past and were happy to contribute in a way that helps both the EBA and them.
Boxes can be ordered per email as from the first of October onward. Are you really curious and really interested, shoot me a message through this website!
Online, we will treat the art scene of Ottawa with a virtual vernissage - an unveiling of our online releases, the box, the work we have installed for our online projects, the 360 panorama project that will find it’s place on our, then also to be unveiled, new website. This will happen on October 15th, with various special events happening in the digital realm - on youtube, facebook live, zoom and of course on our website, on the 17th, the 23d and the 25th of October. These will include a walkthrough of the exhibition, poetry written for our artists by an Ottawan poet, a video made especially for this occasion by the original founder of the EBA, and an artists’ Q&A for and by a teacher at the Ottawa school of Art and his students. So mark your calendars and tune in!
Enriched bread artists’ website
Working from the attic…
Quarantained
Well.. And then the world changed. Came to a standstill and toppled over.
Nearly exactly a century after the last time something like this happened. We, in the rich west, had forgotten that such things are ever a threat, and obviously so.
Here in Ottawa, Ontario, a state of emergency has been announced, the bridges to Quebec and hence Gatineau and Hull, usually the other half of the city, are shuttered. Most shops except grocery stores, tool shops, alcohol stores, tankstations and pharmacies are closed, and the streets are eerily empty. Last time I did groceries -last week- the line for the entrance of the grocery store snaked, with everyone dutifully two metres apart, past the building into the parking lot (I was early, just after the dedicated hour for the elderly) Papers are haphazardly tagged to several shelves: “Due to the Covid-19 situation, we will only allow an x number of x products…”
The border with the USA is closed, there are nearly no flights to Europe anymore. Had you told me at new years’ eve, when everybody was phoning everybody and wishing them a happy new year, that three months in, this would be a thing and we’d be looking at projections of millions of people dying worldwide this year before autumn, I would have looked at you incredulously. I might have laughed. I might have said: “Oh come on, World War three is not *that near!
And here I am, at home. I miss my new studio terribly. I had just moved, in February, one floor down to a bigger studio with the Enriched Bread Artists, and that space felt like home already two hours in.
Now, I am in the attic, with just my drawing stuff -no room for big painting here- and find myself near unable to work. Mainly because my brain is still in overdrive from what is happening.
The new queendom, where I long to return to. (picture is from February)
This newshunger, combined with horror, is slowing down now, luckily, two weeks into our social distancing, my brain is mashed to a pulp by all the news, all the numbers, the projections, the opinions, the hope, the fear, that I follow from The Netherlands as well as Switzerland and Germany, and for Canada my now temporary home. I feel I am starting to turn away from it, there is only so much a brain can take.
And now, now that the whole wide world is in quarantaine -or at least, everybody in the world who can afford to be in quarantaine and stay home, I am clutching my heart for the southern part of the globe- there is not much more to do then fight the boredom and turn to drawing.
I might make more Monkey Kings than Hannah Arendts for the foreseeable future, I presume. And use this time to go search for new series, new subjects (which will be related to my forever subject: humanity’s madness) And watch the pure madness unfold on my screen.
Be well and safe and healthy out there. I wish you all strength, joy, resilience and hope.
The least we can do is to make this a turnaround in society, in the way we deal with ourselves and our economy and the planet we are on. The time is now.
A new Monkey King, waiting to be numbered and added to the stock.
Newest Hannah Arendt, who smokes yet another one and will keep on smoking these glorious ideas of these humans that react, adjust, and abuse power in a way she described crisp and clear already many decades ago. This crisis immediately brings various people and nations to similar attitudes and behaviours. It is really unsure how any nation will fare, which way they will go, and how. All is open now, like a proton in quantum mechanics. Any of us could go whichever which way, be taken up by any wave rolling over us.
Exhibition for International Women's Day
The Enriched bread artists’ community hosts a small exhibit in honour of International Women’s Day and my work will be in it. The vernissage will be on Thursday 5th of March, from 18:00 onwards.
Come enjoy a drink with me and my colleagues, come enjoy the art, the building and it’s inhabitants -in their natural habitats, no less- and the laughter. Think of where women were, a century ago, where they are now, where they could be in the future.
Show will be on Friday night and on through the weekend.
Enter the new studio...
Unfortunately, the house where I had my studio in, the Nectar centre on Mc Kay street, was sold. A process that was a long time coming. Also, a process that threatens many, if not all, artists’ spaces in the world. Where artists go, neighbourhoods gradually get more hip, real estate prices rise, and inevitably the speculators come in and the artists get booted out.
Once, in an article in a Dutch newspaper, it was argued that the city of Amsterdam should reimburse artists for the work in city development that artists unwittingly do, work that no other entity in society can do quite as well, as effectively and as naturally. The author argued that without the artists and artisans, the North side of Amsterdam would never have become the hip area it is today. No preconceived government led strategic city planning entity would have pulled that off. Yet, city planners rarely take artists into account. And mind you, Amsterdam city planners take artist into account far more than they do here in Ottawa. Alas.
But. Enter the saving grace. Just in time, a studio became available at the Enriched bread Artist collective. An artists community that rents an old breadfactory in the west of Ottawa on Gladstone. So even though it looks like the house of my old studio will not be renovated for at least a year to come, I jumped at the change. The EBA (“Ee-bee-aa”) is itself slated for redevelopment, but those plans will take at least three more years to implement, so I am sure I will be able to work there for the remainder of my Ottawan years.
In the plans proposed for the whole area of Gladstone and Loretta, where there are now multiple art studios, a glass works studio, a clayworks studio and a microbrewery, the building the EBA is in is spared, slated to remain, dwarfed by the towering condos that will be built behind it. So far, it seems like the city will go along with this option. Wether that will also be the outcome of the project remains to be seen.
For now, I have become part of the Enriched Bread artists - they have been here since 1992- and they have welcomed me with open arms. I have just moved in and unpacked my stuff. Lo and behold: my new studio. In an as of yet still very orderly state. It will not remain so for long.
Onward!
My work in Milan "The colour of thought"
The exhibition “the Colour of thought” that my work was part of in New York, travels to Italy, and will be shown at Mymicrogallery in Milan from the 15th to the 30th of October.
Sneak peak..
The opening will be Tuesday, 15th of October, form 18;00 hours onward!
From the press release:
Curated by Stefania Carrozzini
Participating artists: Marije Bijl, Rosaspina Buscarino, Patrick Dennis, Gaia di Blasio Akshita Gandhi, Carine Hayoz, Susi Lamarca, Claire Pinci Marion Schmidtke, Susi Zucchi
MyMicroGallery is pleased to present “The Colour of Thought/Il Colore del Pensiero a travelling group exhibition featuring works by ten artists hailing from countries across the world including France, Germany, India, Italy, United States, Switzerland . They are from diverse backgrounds and have experience in varying mediums including painting and photography.
The exhibition has been successfully presented in New York at Onishi Project Gallery in June 2019 and now in Milan has been extended to other artists who shared the show’s concept.
Organized and curated by Stefania Carrozzini, gallerist, artist and independent curator based in Milan, this show’s concept offers the opportunity to reflect on the theme of Emotional Intelligence related to creative process, intuition and inspiration. The artworks chosen have different vibration of and come from different impulses and methods welcoming an open-ended process of feeling art with all our senses.
Emotional intelligence unites the heart and the mind, these two great enigmas; it blends passions and reason, and it is the only type of intelligence, which is able to make humanity evolve. Emotional intelligence is strictly tied to creative thought and art is always fruit of thought and emotion. Art helps us to understand our emotions and so it is fundamental in order to preserve a sane society.
Artists have always used all the possible tools, which enable free expression of emotions and thoughts reflecting, with a greater or lesser degree of awareness, the changes in society. Beyond the scientific value, which the title of this exhibition might well suggest, it is important to underline the impact emotions have on our daily life. Artists know how to lend a voice to a disparate range of emotions channelling them into sounds, colours and movement.
catalogue will be available at the gallery
The opening at the Onishi Project gallery, new York
Yesterday, a whole lot of the galleries of New York’s Chelsea neighbourhood held their opening nights, resultung in a stready stream of art lovers, artists, art world shapers and curious tourists to roam the galleries of Chelsea, in search for a good image and a few glasses of wine or bubbly to go with it.
I attended the opening of the group exhibit “the colour of thought” in the Onishi gallery, curated by Stefania Carrozzini.
I am a shy person. I love seeing people walk up to my work and really look at it. In order to talk to them, I need to take a breath. I met many genuinely interested people and a few glasses of bubbly surely helped!
I stayed two more days in new York, way too little of course, I completely overdosed on art and vowed to be back soon. I do hope my works will have captured the interest of many a gallery visitor.
The exhibit is on till Saturday 15th of June. After that, the work goes on to Milan!
My work at the Enriched Bread Artists open doors exhibit
Some pictures from this past weekend’s open doors exhibit at the Enriched Bread Artists building in Ottawa:
Those nine drawings are mine: 7 Monkey Kings and two things that nobody remembers…
On Saturday, more than a hundred people had already wandered through the building before Lunch. Despite the grey weather, Ottawans of all ilk came out to take a peek at the inside of many otherwise closed off buildings!
Har har… the organisation knows their artists!
Find them here on the internet: Enriched Bread Artists Website. They can also be found on FB.
This coming weekend: Doors Open Ottawa, and the EBA opens it's many doors!
A couple of my works (Nine drawings, to be exact, they’ll be on the ground floor, most likely) were invited to the exhibit that the Enriched Bread Artists set up for this years’ ‘Doors open’ event in Ottawa. The EBA building will be open for visitors and one can wander around the many studio’s there, and take a sneak peek at the spaces were weird, great, intriguing, subtle or jarring ideas are thought up that lead to both the weird and the wonderful, the uncomfortable and the uncategorisable works of Art. The artists will be present, as well as iced coffee and warm tea.
My work at the Onishi Project space in New York this coming June
I am proud to announce that my work will travel to New York again this year, to be featured in the show “The colour of thought” curated by Stefania Carrozzini at the Onishi Project gallery in New York.
The opening is Thursday the 6th of June from 6 pm to 8 pm, and I would be delighted to raise the glass with you!
Machiavelli. We are all Machiavellian, some of us just more so than others…
See you in the big apple!
The new sanctum sanctorum...
Not far from where I now live, is the Nectar Community centre. It offers affordable studio spaces for artists, room for teachers to teach their creative classes in, and a gallery slash partyroom slash eventspace slash recital salon for anyone who wants to make a presentation, teach a dancing class, make music, throw a party, or show their work.
It is unsure how long this place will exist. It has been bought, so far with a proviso, and is slated to become two living apartments. People from the neighbourhood have filed an official objection against these plans however, so for the duration of the time it will take to process that complaint and judge on it, it will remain there. And that will also be how long I will have a studio there. A studio with only one window, and a tad smaller then what I am used to - I am starting to see how the northwestern European situation for artists is a heaven compared to what I meet here in Ottawa- but a good space with a good atmosphere. No contract, no long term hopes, but at least I will have a space to work in again for the near future. I am so, so, so, so happy the drairy waiting time is over! I will be moving all my paint, my linen the ink and the markers and the crumpled paper and mangled old books and cut out pictures in next week and you will see updates with new work popping up on Instagram again not too long after that! Life in Ottawa has now officially been declared started!
New year, New world, New beginnings
Ottawa!
My wife’s work takes us over the world. As an artist, there are big upsides as well as downsides to it. The upside is the adventure, the opportunity to get an intimate, and extended look at another country, another culture, another identity and other stories. It is a great source of inspiration.
The downside is the breaking up of networks every time we move. Since the artworld is made out of networks, this is a significant downside. I have to find out where the art world is in every new place, find out where the established art world is, where the underground, up-and-coming, alternative art world resides, and find myself a working space that is affordable. An effort that takes time and resilience.
In Ottawa, there is the Enriched Bread Artists, an artists’ collective housed in an old bread factory. I applied for a studio there and to my delight, was accepted to their waiting list. Unfortunately, there are still people on the waiting list before me and it is unclear how long it will take for a studio in the building to become free. Also, the EBA building is facing the danger that many artist’s collectives and studiospaces have already faced, fought and lost: Urban development. It has announced not too long ago that a development project is in the works for the area that the Enriched Bread Artists are in. Talks are now ongoing on how to maintain or otherwise incorporate the creative spaces in the new plans.
I am keeping my fingers crossed.
So for me, the search for a studio is still on. Until that time, only my sketchbook is my workspace, the snow, wind, river and forests that permeate Ottawa my new world.
And to think that Europe is full in the throes of spring already!
A very happy new year to all!
A happy and healthy new year to all my friends, colleagues and art enthousiasts!
Einen guten Rutsch wünsche ich meine Freunde, Kollegen und Kunstliebenden!
Une tres bonne année pour mes amis, collègues et amoureux d'art!
Een heel gelukkig nieuwjaar voor al mijn vrienden, kollega's en kunstliefhebbers!
Remember: the Kantonale Berne Jura is still on till the 20th of january, and my work can be viewed in the old church of le Noirmont, every thursday through to sunday, 14:00 till 18:00.
On top of that, a Bach recital wil be played in the church on sunday the 13th at 17:00. A hint for those who would like to combine music with art!
More info: http://www.lanef.ch/expos/2019/musique-des-lumieres/330-voyage-bach-2
Pictures of the vernissage in Le Noirmont
The vernissage of the Cantonale Berne-Jura 2018 was today, in the old church of le Noirmont, that is the exhibition space of contemporary art organisation La Nef. It is a beautiful space.
There were plenty people, a little over a hundred during the whole vernissage, it was whispered. The atmosphere was what Dutch would call “gezellig” a mix of art lovers of all ages and their kids running through it all as the rain lashed the windows of the old church.
The vernissage took about two hours, after which the wine was gone and therefore the people also headed back home through the storm. It looks like the Jura will see some snow tonight!
Setting up the exhibit in Le Noirmont
Last weekend I delivered my work to the old Church that La Nef uses as it’s exhibition space. And what a space it is!
Opening is next weekend on sunday, 9th of december, from 11:00 hours onwards!
To the left, the flyer of this years’ Cantonale. To the right, my work “Europeans: TINA I”
The opening of the Cantonale in Noirmont is nigh
On Sunday the 9th of December, from 11 hours onward, the old church in Le Noirmont, run by cultural organisation “La Nef” will have the opening of this years Cantonale. Of course I will be there!
Porrentruy, Le Moutier and Interlaken will also have their Cantonale openings on the 9th of december, the other organisations have scheduled their openings on other dates. For more information on what will be exhibited where, on when to go, as well as the opportunity for a guided tour past various of the art spaces participating in the Cantonale, please visit their website: Cantonale Berne Jura
La Nef in Le Noirmont will be opened every Thursday to Sunday, from 14:00 till 18:00 On the 13th of January, there will be a Bach concert in the church amidst the art. You know. Just a hint…
More info on their website.