The Sketchbook Project

 

2010 Sketchbook Tourfull of art

 

 

 

 

 

The Sketchbook Project:

 

Thousands of sketchbooks will be exhibited at galleries and museums as they make their way on tour across the country.

After the tour, all sketchbooks will enter into the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Art Library, where they will be barcoded and available for the public to view.

Anyone - from anywhere in the world - can be a part of the project. To participate and have us send you a sketchbook that will go on tour, start by choosing from one of the selected themes.

Participation - $25

To receive a sketchbook and participate in the project, choose a theme from the list below (or select the first option and we’ll randomly choose a theme for you!)

• Choose a random theme for me
• Facing forward
• Help!
• A record year for rainfall
• Jackets, blankets, and sheets
• I'm sorry I forgot you
• Things found on restaurant napkins
• Lights in the distance
• It's raining dogs and cats
• Revenge
• Trading forever
• And then there was none
• Dirigibles and submersibles

• Capture the flag
• ... you'd be home by now
• Make mine a double
• In 5 minutes...
• Adhere to me
• Coffee and cigarettes
• Boys and girls
• The greatest story ever told
• Science project gone wrong
• Down your street
• Secret codes
• Mystery maps

 

 

 

Each artist is sent the same blank Moleskine sketchbook. We've only got two rules: first, the book must be used in some way - no sending us back an empty book or a completely different book! Second, the sketchbook must stay within its original dimensions (because we don't want to have to provide an extra suitcase just for your book while we're touring the country).

Each book will be given a barcode so we can easily catalog it into The Brooklyn Art Library system. Once we catalog it, artists will be able to track where on the tour their book is viewed and how many times someone pulled it from the shelf - we want to make sure you can stay connected with your sketchbook!

The availability of sketchbooks vary each day, so sign up quickly to reserve the one you want! You have the option to choose the kind of Moleskine and the color of the cover when you add the project to your cart over to the right.

Multiple Coincidences

New exhibits run June 19 to Sept. 19, 2010

FREE opening reception Friday, June 18, 6-10 p.m.

Multiple Coincidences 

Inspired by dynamic symmetries and patterns found in nature, this collaboration between Lizz Aston and Johanna Schmidt explores the spontaneity of materials and processes.

Working within their respective materials of paper and porcelain, each artist examines the composition, repetition and fragility found in naturally occurring formations.

Both artists are inspired by experimenting with processes and combining the results to create groupings that read as a whole.  Paper is bunched, clay slip is drizzled, pieces are dipped, starched, broken and pieced back together – anything to take advantage of the material, or make it appear to be something else.

Sometimes working alone, sometimes building on one another’s ideas, and other times imitating each other’s forms, a dialogue is created.

Degraded muffin cup forms

Wavering paper formation

 Paper bark grouping

These are some images I took prior to installing the show in the vitrines, I will post photographs of the show installation when I get a chance... 

David R Harper

I recently went on a field trip with my friend Shuyu to see the new Lia Cook exhibition at theTextile Museum in Toronto. The week before our museum visit, we had the good fortune of meeting with Lia, as she stopped by the studio to chat with us and give us one on one critiques before presenting her lecture at the York Quey Studio Theatre.
I found my critique with Lia to be really informative as she helped me to whittle down my ideas and the materials I had been exploring for my upcoming collaboration with Johanna.

I really enjoyed Lia's digitally woven tapestries and was impressed with the breadth of work she has created over the course of her career.
While we were at the show we also came across the installations and embroideries of artist David R. Harper who we were both previously unfamiliar with. His work really caught me off guard - to my surprise and delight... Both Shuyu and I were really awestruck by the attention to detail and the amount of handwork involved in each of his pieces... and this coming from a friend who spends hundreds of hours embroidering her own delicate little landscapes!!!



Lia Cook: Faces and Mazes at the textile museum:

Here are some images of David's work in the show:

These images do no justice to the amount of crosshatching and detail!!

Life size horse patched together out of cow hide and embroidered....

Li - dynamic forms in nature

These Past few months have been quite insane, with a number of shows back to back.... Notably, the most interesting show I have had the chance to partake in was a collaboration with my ceramics friend Johanna Schmidt. 

Johanna was one of my co-residents in ceramics studio at harbourfront centre. Her work is both playful and experimental, comprised of a series of multiples- each piece builds upon an unconventional approach to working with her materials. I feel a very similar sentiment to the way she approaches her work and am intruiged in the potential that lays in continuing to explore my ideas through material processes and the use of multiples...

I found a series of these books in Chicago a couple of years ago on a school trip and had to scoop them up!

The series is incredible and a great resource for any craftsperson/visual artist

This soon became the starting point that would inform the beginning of our collaboration:

David Wade has spent a lifetime gathering and organizing the extraordinary families of surface patterns that nature throws up at every scale. The study of these shapes-a subject virtually unknown in the West-was known in ancient China as Li and is the sister science to Feng Shui. In this unique and insightful book are sand and wave patterns, big-cat markings, bark and leaf designs, soap and marbling swirls, crystalline and rock forms, tree branching types, and many more of nature's dynamic, sometimes enigmatic designs. Li will appeal to scientists and artists, and has far-reaching applications in graphic design, architecture, and other visual forms and sciences.

OCC Awards and Scholarships

This year I was very fortunate to be the recipient of the Mary Robertson Textile Award through the Ontario Crafts Council. Here is some more information about the award:

Honouring the memory of Toronto weaver Mary Robertson, this scholarship was established by family to recognize excellence in the medium of textiles through assisting a person intending to pursue further education in textiles. This includes the study of textile printing, surface embellishments, weaving, basketry, and embroidery.

This means I will be posting later on about all the great courses & workshops I plan on taking. Yay.

 

 OCC Awards & Scholarships

Here is a link to the 2010 awards and scholarships page. The deadline to apply happens every April and you must be a student or OCC member to apply. good luck!

Currently up

You can find these three pieces currently up at David Kaye Gallery, at the corner of queen and dovercourt - behind the starbucks. David Kaye has a really lovely space and there are new and ongoing exhibitions all the time.. you should check it out if you have the chance!

Antiquated Notions 1, 2009
Paper, free motion embroidery, thread, burn-out.

Crochet? 2010
Paper, free motion embroidery, thread, burn-out.

Drop stitch, 2010
Paper, free motion embroidery, thread, burn-out.

The Artist Project pt 2

Here is a link to my page as well as a number of other artists whose work I enjoyed at the show..

My page

Shuyu lu

Mark Stebbins 

Tamara Weller 

Emma Nishimura

Sophia Muller

The Artist Project Toronto - March 2010

 

Antiquated Notions Series, 2009

Paper, free motion embroidery, thread, burn-out.

Antiquated Notions Series, 2010

Paper, free motion embroidery, thread, burn-out.

Oli and Nick

Installation detail

These are a bunch of images from The Artist Project that happened last march. I met a lot of amazing people there and was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship to be in the Untapped Emerging Artist section of the show, alongside my friend and studio mate Shuyu Lu.

First Post

Since this is my first ever post on a blog, I will be spending the next little while updating you on the work that i do, things that im interested in and the art that makes me swoon...