News
Covid-19 has changed all our lives. I am thankful that I have remained well, but long to return to normal activities like visiting with friends and family, and travelling for art and pleasure.
While self-isolating in Port Hope I have been working in my studio daily. In 2020 I produced Other Echoes, a collection of works on paper examining home and memory.
Early in 2021 I completed the Canadian part of The Tangled Garden a large, long-term garden wall project. Hopefully in the future I will have the opportunity to travel and develop the imagined two remaining walls.
My annual summer canoe trip with the other artists of the Gibson Girls, was cancelled and our exhibition in Vilnius, Lithuania was postponed until 2022. The mail art exchange project we were to exhibit, Where I'm at Now: A Conversation in Art has continued and provided some solace and connection. Go to our newly launched website gibsongirlsart.com to see the growing collection of collaborative postcards created by the group. Follow our activities and the project on instagram @5gibsongirls.
News
Covid-19 has changed all our lives. I am thankful that I have remained well, but long to return to normal activities like visiting with friends and family, and travelling for art and pleasure.
While self-isolating in Port Hope I have been working in my studio daily. In 2020 I produced Other Echoes, a collection of works on paper examining home and memory.
Early in 2021 I completed the Canadian part of The Tangled Garden a large, long-term garden wall project. Hopefully in the future I will have the opportunity to travel and develop the imagined two remaining walls.
My annual summer canoe trip with the other artists of the Gibson Girls, was cancelled and our exhibition in Vilnius, Lithuania was postponed until 2022. The mail art exchange project we were to exhibit, Where I'm at Now: A Conversation in Art has continued and provided some solace and connection. Go to our newly launched website gibsongirlsart.com to see the growing collection of collaborative postcards created by the group. Follow our activities and the project on instagram @5gibsongirls.
News
Covid-19 has changed all our lives. I am thankful that I have remained well, but long to return to normal activities like visiting with friends and family, and travelling for art and pleasure.
While self-isolating in Port Hope I have been working in my studio daily. In 2020 I produced Other Echoes, a collection of works on paper examining home and memory.
Early in 2021 I completed the Canadian part of The Tangled Garden a large, long-term garden wall project. Hopefully in the future I will have the opportunity to travel and develop the imagined two remaining walls.
My annual summer canoe trip with the other artists of the Gibson Girls, was cancelled and our exhibition in Vilnius, Lithuania was postponed until 2022. The mail art exchange project we were to exhibit, Where I'm at Now: A Conversation in Art has continued and provided some solace and connection. Go to our newly launched website gibsongirlsart.com to see the growing collection of collaborative postcards created by the group. Follow our activities and the project on instagram @5gibsongirls.
Where I'm At Now
Where I'm At Now is a collection of postcards reflecting the experience of place - physical and psychic - with a group of artists. Vulnerability and trust were explored as the artists offered glimpses of their thinking and working process in their current studio practice and allowed others in the group to change and develop the work. Each image became a visual conversation as subsequent artists responded with their own visual language and thinking. A conversation was deemed complete when each artist in the group had responded to an image or if three or more artists in the group agreed that a conversation/composition was resolved.
This project was undertaken by artists Yael Brotman, Karen Curry, Liz Parkinson, Snaige Sileika and MJ Steenberg, from 2018-2022. Colloquially called "The Gibson Girls" after a river they canoed on in the early 1990's, the group has been canoeing and travelling together in some form for 30+ years and is now often living across the globe. At our 2018 retreat I suggested this 'mail art' idea to help us stay connected and keep our conversation about art and life going during the rest of the year.
Each artist began five artworks on 4"x6" pieces of paper based on their current studio inquiry and mailed four of these to the others in the group. Each subsequent artist then added their own marks before sending the work to another member of the group. More than 600 postcards eventually travelled to Gabriola Island, British Columbia; Pouch Cove, Newfoundland; Vilnius, Lithuania; Toronto, Lake Panache, Georgian Bay, Delta and Port Hope Ontario; as well as Puerto Escondido, Mexico, with input from each of the artists. The project arced from tentative beginnings to full-on experimentation and exploration of materials and idea. Covid also impacted the project by prolonging isolation and instilling an anxiety that manifested itself in the imagery and colour range used by the artists. However throughout the entire experience we all looked forward to the connection and challenge provided by the next delivery of postcards.
Where I'm at Now: A Conversation in Art was exhibited at Open Studio, Toronto in 2019, The Slapelis Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2022 and at the Gabriola Arts and Heritage Centre in June 2023. It will be shown at Propeller Gallery in Toronto in 2025. Selections from the collection have also been included in various Canadian and international group shows. See all the artwork produced in this project at gibsongirlsart.com
I am interested in exploring variations of this project with different groups of artists or modified as a community project to engage in wider conversations about mark making and more importantly vulnerability and trust in collaborating with others.
