So, our last painting this session is abstract. The National Art Gallery is running the Canadian Biennial 2014 exhibit, a show that includes recent acquisitions from their contemporary, photography and indigenous art collections. So for some inspiration, Will and I visit the National Art Gallery to take in the entire Canadian Biennial 2014. We are enchanted. The next day, I return with Dad and we spend time with the Group of Seven. We are transported. And then, we're back again, this time with Jack to see the Jack Bush exhibit. We are mesmerized. To start we choose a figurative painting as a reference for our abstract painting. I pick something by John Singer Sargent and it's a painting of four sisters. It so happens I have three wonderful sisters (and together we make four). Well, after an hour or so, the Sargent is fleeting, and the painting is now my own. The picture must be flat with no depth — a complete turn from our previous work. After a morning of piling on the paint, we take time to observe each other's work. When I ask some of my fellow students what they will do with their paintings, they tell me it's for their Mom at Christmas. Nice.
Time to "activate" our cast sculpture (aka: My Right Foot). First, it's put in a location where it will be discovered. I place it at the front entrance of our home. When my sons and their friends wander in, they have a favourite spot for their shoes. It's next to a vent, where their sneakers cool down in the summer and boots dry in the winter. I see it as a place where the footwear gathers, arriving in pairs and dressed for the occasion. My plaster cast of a solitary, chalk-white and unshod foot appears on our threshold — as an uninvited, somewhat familiar, and not unwelcome guest. Continuing with the same theme of activation, we now present our plaster piece as sculpture. First, I build two lidded wooden shoeboxes, and make them the exact size of the real thing (and by the way, the practical part of me knows those boxes will be useful later). Then, the plaster foot is sheathed in a clear silicone cast I make of a running shoe. An open box with the foot now rests on top of closed shoebox, just like it does in the shoe store.
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May 2018
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