out of the loop (for a while): Scotland View

At the recent Edinburgh Art Festival, I took a tour with Anthony Schrag who was commissioned as Tourist in Residence for the Festival. His series of participatory tours invited participants to engage with the city in different ways. This particular tour was called A Guide to Being a Tourist in Edinburgh.
One part of the tour involved walking along Princes Street Garden, a very busy area of Edinburgh, very SLOWLY, then STOPPING suddenly for no apparent reason, then POINTING to something. It also included going to the top of the Scott Monument, then stepping out blindfolded, at the top, to have the view described. Later, we were able to look at the view, through a mirror.

Another section of his tour involved a 4 and a half minute tour of the Talbot Rice Gallery. We walked through exhibits of contemporary work and the historical collection glancing briefly at the artworks while Anthony gave us an animated and fast audio tour. It was brilliant and hilarious while considering how, as tourists, we strive to see it all, do it all. 

While living in Edinburgh for the year, I have been 'doing' galleries and the city, but have also been going on hiking excursions out of the city with a walking group. My latest walk was a Munro in the Trossachs area. (A Munro is a mountain in Scotland with a height over 3,000 feet. There are people known as 'Munro baggers' whose aim is to climb all the Munros; there are 282 Munros in Scotland, and 227 further subsidiary tops.) 

One of the things I love about the Scottish landscape is the sheep dotting the hills. They seem to eat incessantly. I like their watchful presence. They remind me not to 'do' it all.

Photos by Sandra Gregson

Interviews on the World of Threads

Toronto artist and loop member Gareth Bate is also the exhibition curator of the upcoming World of Threads Festival. This exhibition of contemporary fibre art will take place in November 2012 in Toronto and Oakville and include the work of local, national and international artists.


Loop members who have been featured in the weekly series of artist interviews include:

Yael Brotman
http://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com/artist_interviews/056_yael_brotman_12.html

Sandra Gregson
http://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com/artist_interviews/040_sandra_gregson_11.html

Libby Hague
http://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com/artist_interviews/044_libby_hague_11.html

Mary Catherine Newcomb
http://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com/artist_interviews/051_mary_catherine_newcomb_2012.html


Rochelle Rubinstein
http://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com/artist_interviews/030_rochelle_rubinstein_11.html

To learn more about The World of Threads Festival, visit  http://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com

Loopers in the News

Persons of Interest by Gary Clement

Gary Clement has new works on display at Parts Gallery 1150 Queen Street East.

Sandra Gregson is one of the featured artists on World of Threads Festival website as the 40th "Weekly Fibre Artist Interview."

At loop gallery this weekend are Mark Adair and Jane Lowbeer. On the last day of their exhibitions, Sunday, December 4th, there will be a Q&A session. Instead of a moderator,  Mark and Jane will ask each other questions.

Loopers in the news

Here are some loopers who have made the news recently:

Sandra Gregson

Sandra Gregson was mentioned in R.M. Vaughan's weekend review of Toronto's art scene in the Globe & Mail. He wrote this about Sandra's recent show at Loop: "Last chance to catch Gregson’s shredded-book wonders – exquisite mobiles, carpets, sculptures and collages made from carefully threaded strips of hapless, grinder-fed books. Best (ab)use of Joyce’s Ulysses ever." Read the complete article here.

Modification, oil on canvas (16x20) by Ian McLean

Ian McLean was featured in the last issue of Hamilton Arts and Letters in an article called Ian McLean: Yards & Muscle Cars by Andrea Rabinovitch. She describes McLean's work as follows:
"Stylistically impressionistic in richly hued colours, the use of the sharply delineated pristine swimming pools in many of the paintings suggest, nature controlled, confined within a very strict order that is considered a status symbol we all subscribe to. Like the Hockney pools of the late sixties, they are used as a compositional tool to describe a place, both real and metaphorically inherent in us hapless humans, but also to consider the nature of water contained." Read the complete article here.

Libby Hague at the AGO

Libby Hague's installation at the AGO was reported in ArtDailyNews and included the following quote from curator Michelle Jacques, the AGO's acting curator of Canadian art. “Libby Hague’s playful, yet foreboding narratives give physical form to fictional worlds that simultaneously mirror and manipulate reality. Sympathetic Connections provides a timely exploration of our problematic relationship with the natural environment, invoking universal themes of responsibility and dependency, vulnerability and rescue, and risk and luck.”

And I published an extract of my conversation with Director and CEO of the AGO, Matthew Teitelbaum, on Fashion Projects. We chatted about art and fashion. The link is here.

Sandra Gregson at loop Gallery

Sandra Gregson

Sandra Gregson’s the year my dog died includes sculptures and a video projection. Overwhelmed by the never ending accumulation of pay statements, house bills, photographs, credit card and ATM receipts, Sandra, after shredding documents to eliminate personal data, began sewing them into sculptural forms. These works consider how accumulation defines us. Other works, one made from a shredded novel, another from a shredded dictionary, refer to the accumulative nature of language and culture. Impermanence is deliberated in the process of shredding and making: undoing and redoing.

Sandra Gregson works with drawing, sculpture and video, often combining these media. Her work is about noticing everyday things, and events, in a playful, subtle, critical way, and with an intent of linking art and life. She studied at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (BFA) and at York University (MFA). Her videos and artwork have been shown throughout Canada and internationally, including the Alternative Film/Video Festival, Belgrade; champ libre, Montreal; Ontario Crafts Council Gallery, Toronto; Nuit Blanche at the Gladstone Hotel, Toronto.

Sandra's show continues at loop Gallery until Sunday, July 17, 2011.

Installation Shots for Gareth Bate and Sandra Gregson

Loop Gallery June 25, 2011

This was the scene at loop Gallery last weekend during the opening receptions for Gareth Bate and Sandra Gregson. The gallery is open on Canada Day and also this weekend. All photos are by Patricia Njovu.

Gareth Bate in conversation

Visitors examining Gareth Bate's work

Close up of Gareth Bate's work

Sandra Gregson and friends

Visitors examining Sandra Gregson's work

 

Gareth Bate and Sandra Gregson at loop Gallery

loop Gallery is pleased to announce exhibitions by loop members Gareth Bate entitled Floating World, and Sandra Gregson entitled the year my dog died.

Gareth Bate, Floating World: Tsunami 1, acrylic on wood, 4 x 4 feet, 2011

Sandra Gregson, Ulysses (detail), shredded pages of book, thread, book cover, 21 x 45 x 62 cm, 2010
(photo credit: Toni Hafkenscheid)

Gareth Bate’s Floating World is a response to the Japanese tsunami. These paintings are a kind of Vanitas - scenes of great beauty suddenly engulfed by devastation. The tsunami represents total sublime horror. It spreads through entire cities and farmlands, demolishing and consuming everything in its path. Indiscriminate and inescapable. Gareth’s recent work explores our ultimate scale in the universe, and an existential terror of our final insignificance. Floating World represents the Earth itself, fragile and barely staying afloat. These paintings could be seen as bleak, but it is impossible for an artwork to be nihilistic. Making art is inherently about creating meaning out of life.

Gareth Bate’s practice includes painting, photography, installation, performance, video and set design. He graduated from the adult program at Central Tech, and OCAD where he won the 401 Richmond Career-Launcher Prize, a free studio for a year. He represented emerging artists in the Toronto Star’s series “Artists in Real Life: The Up and Comers”. Recently Gareth organized the 401 Richmond Artists Open Studio and launched Gareth Bate Art Projects a new studio/exhibition venue at 401 Richmond, Toronto. Upcoming shows include "Fleshed Out" for Nuit Blanche an installation dance performance called David Pressault Danse, and Gareth's curated group show "Studio Detritus: Art Artifacts" featuring remarkable objects from artists’ studios.

Sandra Gregson’s the year my dog died includes sculptures and a video projection. Overwhelmed by the never ending accumulation of pay statements, house bills, photographs, credit card and ATM receipts, Sandra, after shredding documents to eliminate personal data, began sewing them into sculptural forms. These works consider how accumulation defines us. Other works, one made from a shredded novel, another from a shredded dictionary, refer to the accumulative nature of language and culture. Impermanence is deliberated in the process of shredding and making: undoing and redoing.

Sandra Gregson works with drawing, sculpture and video, often combining these media. Her work is about noticing everyday things, and events, in a playful, subtle, critical way, and with an intent of linking art and life. She studied at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (BFA) and at York University (MFA). Her videos and artwork have been shown throughout Canada and internationally, including the Alternative Film/Video Festival, Belgrade; champ libre, Montreal; Ontario Crafts Council Gallery, Toronto; Nuit Blanche at the Gladstone Hotel, Toronto.

Please join the artists in celebrating the opening reception on Saturday, June 25th from 2-5 pm.

The show will run until July 17, 2011.

Sandra Gregson at the Parkdale Film + Video Showcase

Still image from vers(ing) by Sandra Gregson and Barbara Steinberg

Loop member Sandra Gregson made a video with Barbara Steinberg called vers(ing) that will be shown  on Friday, June 24 at the 13th Annual Parkdale Film + Video Showcase. 

Vers, moving toward something, around a certain time.

Versing to express in verse.

Conversing to talk informally with another or others; exchange views, opinions by talking.

vers(ing) opens in a coffee shop. People, sit, enter and exit. A conversation is heard. The video continues, traveling through the streets of a city, to a park, to other coffee shops, other places. No particular destination is reached, but as we travel, fragments of text are read, conversations are heard, settings, people and objects are noticed. 

vers(ing) presents a moving toward that is transitory and offers a poetic contemplation of how life, meaning, and film are intertwined and constructed.

“I believe I’ve never mistaken fiction for reality, though I have mixed them together more than once, as everyone does.” Javier Marias, Dark Back of Time

running time is 9:56
vers(ing) is distributed by www.vtape.org

The Showcase runs from June 22 to 26. For more information see www.parkdaleshowcase.ca.