Renkum Artist Residency - A Little Movie.

While I was on my artists residency in Renkum Holland I created jewellery pieces based on the theme of movement, change, and growth.  I watched spring bloom around me and sewed brightly coloured felt into flower petals.  I accepted the changes that have been heaved my way recently and twisted wire into wheels.  I propelled myself to the other side of the world to solder wire into wings.  While I was doing this, my beau was making this video.  It's not until coming back to Canada until I realized how connected this video was to the work I was creating.  

Jewelry For Your Wall

When I was in Holland my workbench faced a big window overlooking a garden.  I would start my work day by quickly sketching one piece of the garden.  I didn't want this act to take up a lot of my time.  I wanted my eyes to hone in on one detail from the garden and quickly transfer it to paper.  It was like my little daily exercise before I started "the real work".

The garden I was looking at bloomed while I was sketching it.  Pinks, purples, reds, and oranges opened into life in front of me.  Each day I was excited to wake up and see the changes happening outside, and then one day I started to see my sketches differently......I started to add metal to them.  I was twisting wire that represented movement, change, and growth.  I was making these little wire tornado like earrings, so I started sewing them onto my sketches. They became these little objects for your wall......a huge stray off of my regular path.  Something I wasn't even quite sure I was comfortable with, but it felt right so I kept making them.

When I was presenting this work at our dinner in Renkum one of the artists there suggested I view it as jewelry for your wall, which I loved!

So here it is, your first glimpse at my Jewelry For Your Wall and the blooming gardens which inspired them.

Telling The Truth

"Telling the truth is like spreading the underside of your wings, you see that part only when you fly" 

- Sabrina Ward Harrison. 

I brought the above words with me on my artist residency. 

I also brought images of birds in flight, wings, butterflies, flowers, flying sculptures........

Sculptures by Ranjani Shettar

Papaya Art

My life for the past couple of years has been moving.  At times I've been pushing it..... and dragging it forward. At other times its been tunneling right over me and I haven't been sure if I can catch up with it.  

Through-out all of this movement I've had my feet firmly planted on an earth that was familiar, my home, my life, my apartment, my street. 

Until now.  I needed to firmly step off of solid ground - on my terms this time......and fly.  

For these reasons my work while in Holland has been influenced by the ideas of flight, moving, propelling forward, leaping, taking risks, changing, evolving, wings, wheels, growth, petals, freedom, letting go, growth, renewal.......

"Telling The Truth", Brooch - copper, wire, felt, thread

Artist Residencies

I'm preparing to go on my first Artist Residency this spring. Since deciding to go, I've had lots of questions from people about the why, what, who, and how of of it. So, I'm going to tell you all more about it here and hopefully inspire some of you to start looking for your own residency experience.

I first really learned about Artist residencies last spring when I attended my first Society of North American Goldsmith's conference in Seattle. We heard an artist named Heidi Schwegler speak. She talked about her experience of doing 4 residencies in 1 year. I remember feeling inspired. How blissful it sounded to travel to another country to make art. She said she wasn't sure how she would be able to do the residencies financially and work wise, but she just started applying. When she got accepted to 4 in a 1 year period, she said everything just started coming together for her. This got my mind ticking a little.....

When I got home from that conference I started to look into residencies. Being a Jewelry Artist, I have always had some trouble calling myself an "Artist"........ I didn't go to Emily Carr, I don't have my Masters in Fine Arts....... I went to VCC a local community college and earned a Diploma in Jewelry Art and Design, I've taken numerous art and jewelry classes from other local artists, I've participated in national and international exhibitions......but still I have some trouble calling myself an Artist, weird yes. So to even look into artist residencies I felt somehow like an impostor. I found some really great websites, (listed below) that had tons of information on them. I was excited to see that there are residency opportunities all over the world and that they all have different requirements. For some you might need your masters in fine art, while others really want to offer space to emerging artists. Some are communal experiences, some are more solo driven. Some you can go for a couple of weeks, others can be months or a year.

After finding a handful of residencies that interested me I asked my beau if he would be interested in applying too and going together to one if possible. His response was, "But I'm not an artist, only you are", hmmm, interesting. My response to him, "But you've made a movie, and you have played and toured in bands nationally and internationally, and you haven't worked for anyone but yourself in over 15 years"............So.......we started applying...... two "non artists" started to apply to artist residencies, submitting proposals of work we wanted to create while on the residencies. And we started to get accepted.

We are now getting ready to go to Renkum, a small town in The Netherlands. Where I will create 30 (gasp) new one of a kind pieces of wearable art, using various types of metal wire, fabric, and found objects and he will write a script for a new movie. You know non artist type stuff!
This amazing opportunity is through an arts organization called OBRAS. They have residency opportunities in both The Netherlands and in Portugal.

The most comprehensive list of artist residencies that I found was this:

www.resartis.org
You have to just start looking through them to see if you want them and if they might want you. Some of them do require a lot of experience, and some prefer that you are emerging.


Here is a video that Heidi Schwegler made during one of her residencies. It was really this video and hearing her speak that inspired it all for me.

Wrest 01 from heidi schwegler on Vimeo.

And........There's still time to help me make the most of this experience. I have a little crowd funding project going on Rocket Hub right now. $20 of support gets you a hand written post card from Holland, and who doesn't want that?