Ai Weiwei (part 1)

Posted on October 13, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….pronounce ‘I way way’

Today my friend L, her sister and father and I drove into the city to the Art Gallery of Ontario to see the David Bowie Show and the Ai Weiwei Show. A lot to take in, in the short time we had. Considering it is the Thanksgiving weekend the gallery wasn’t too busy when we arrived at 1:30 but later in the afternoon the line-ups were quite long.

I’m going to share a few of the pieces that I saw at the Ai Weiwei show. This incredible contemporary Chinese artist produces photographs and installation art pieces that raise crucial questions about the right to express and conduct oneself freely and that feature repurposed furniture and artefacts.

One of the first pieces that you can’t help but notice is the snake like sculpture that hangs above your head as you enter the exhibition. It is made from 800 backpacks, commonly used by students in China, to represent the souls of the many children who died in 2008 during the Sichuan earthquake.

As you pass the through the hallway of floor to ceiling photographs and enter the main hall you greeted by a sculpture called “Grapes“. It consists of 40 wooden stools from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) that have been reassembled in a way to transform its meaning and obscure its function. There are no nails in this piece and like the individual stools it is held together with traditional joinery techniques. The whole piece is supported by the legs of one stool.

In the same room, a series of seven chests made from huali wood are lined up across the far side of the room. Each chest has four circular openings that when aligned created the effect of showing every phase of the moon to visitors who walk through the installation. The challenge here was trying to get a shot without people passing through. The piece is called Moon Chest.

I will feature a few more pieces in future posts. In the meantime if you’re in Toronto and you haven’t seen this show, I highly recommend it. Hurry though, it closes October 27th.

Happy Saturday

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….another visit to the market but with daughter, G and sweet Lucy

Whenever we go anywhere with my daughter’s Bassett Hound, Lucy, people stop to make small talk. Yesterday we went back to the Junction Farmers’ Market, sat outside on the patio at the Full Stop and window shopped along Dundas St. W. One of the stores that we wanted to show G was the new meat market situated between the coffee shop and the farmer’s market.

Gourmeats is relatively new to the area. The owner and the employees are extremely friendly and helpful. One of their special features is marinating your choice of meat before you leave the store. There are numerous options to choose from and after the marinade is added (no extra charge) the bag and contents are vacuum sealed.

My husband and G went into the store while I waited outside with Lucy. Every time someone entered or left the store Lucy approached the door, hoping to make her way inside. After awhile both Lucy and I began to peer through the glass door to see what was keeping both of them so long. Someone passed by and commented on what a funny picture that would have been, seeing both of us longingly peer through the butcher’s door.

The meats at Gourmeats are of excellent quality. My only complaint is that they are a tad expensive but then we shouldn’t be eating so much meat anyway and you really do get what you pay for. K purchased some pork shoulder, which he should be cooking shortly for our dinner with the kids today. Everyone is coming over later for a family meal to celebrate my husband’s birthday. We’re also hoping to make it into a ‘game’ day as well.

The only other thing we bought was a capon. I’ve become a huge fan of capons after purchasing one down at the St. Lawrence Market earlier this year. We’ll probably get four or five meals from this big bird alone.

Today we’re having the family over to celebrate K’s birthday and the plan is to make Mexican tacos from scratch. One of the things that we needed are fresh tortillas. We knew of a place situated closer to our daughter’s place so we called her and asked her if she could pick some up for us. She texted us back and told us of a place that has recently opened up very close to where we live.

So after visiting the Junction we made our way to La Tortilleria to pick up fresh yellow and white corn tortillas. La Tortilleria makes tortillas and nacho chips daily and also prepares ready to eat meals as well. You can sit in or take out and there is a small store attached with Mexican products so that you can prepare your own meals if you’re so inclined.

Our last stop of the day was at the Pie Commission. This is a brand new take out place that K discovered on Twitter. Our daughter’s partner, J, also texted us about it so K checked it out a couple of weeks ago and he wanted to show us the place and order some pies for dinner.

The Pie Commission makes a variety of savoury meat pies and sells them from a take out window. There are a few seating areas outside the location where you can sit and enjoy your meal or you can opt to buy the pies frozen and take them home and bake them in your own oven. There are plans to expand the place so that you can go inside. They’d better hurry. As good as the pies are I can’t see people lining up outside in the middle of February, especially if we have another winter like last year’s.

We took home a selection of 4 different pies and served them with a large salad. A great meal and a very special treat for us. As good as these pies are, they aren’t exactly diet food.

After dinner we made our way to a birthday party across the street. We enjoyed the company of our neighbours and met some new people. We also got to know some of our dog walking acquaintances better.

One of our fellow dog walkers is Adrian deRooy. I mention his name here because he is quite an accomplished artist and I would like to feature some of his work here. We’ve only met Adrian and his dog a couple of times but he always engages us in conversation. One of the things we didn’t know about him is that he makes his living as an artist.

At the party we noticed that T had great paintings on her walls and four of them were painted by Adrian. Here is Adrian deRooy’s website where you can check out more of his work. I’ve included a few of his paintings here so you can see what a talented guy he is. He is also a very nice man and very down to earth.

Adrian and Daisy

Time to start prepping for dinner and getting ready for the family. It’s been a great weekend so far.

Cheers!

Hooray for the Weekend

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….my week at a glance

I can’t believe that 5 weeks of school have already passed. I’ve already been on a three day trip to the outdoor education centre with the grade 5s. We’ve had a community BBQ, curriculum night, our first school council meeting, and Terry Fox Run. Our cross country team has been out running for the last five weeks and on Monday 120 students are going to the first of three meets. The girls’ and boys’ slo pitch teams and flag football teams have been practising for at least three weeks and the primary and junior choirs have been singing up a storm getting ready for the Remembrance Day concert in November.

On Monday of this week I went with the grade 4 and 5 students to the McMichael Art Gallery where we toured the gallery for half the day and saw work from the Group of Seven, Norval Morrisseau, Inuit artists and Edward Burtinsky. In the second half of the day the students were engaged in a hands on watercolour painting session. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera but one of the mom’s took lots of pictures. Hopefully I can share a few in a future post.

On Tuesday we had our first Future Ace assembly where we honour students who have demonstrated outstanding character traits, such as kindness, respect or sportsmanship. It was also the launch of the school magazine drive which raises money through the sale of magazine subscriptions. After school I made a trip to Arts Junction but left with very little in the way of art supplies but I did buy my husband his birthday present on my way home.

On Wednesday I taught two double periods of art to two of my grade 3 classes. I’m starting to feel better about their Norval Morrisseau style paintings. Last week I lamented how some of them weren’t getting the concept. I made a sample for the children to model from and I’m pleased to announce that they’re starting to understand the concept of ‘x-ray paintings’. This lesson from Kinder Art helped put the lesson into a perspective that the students could understand.

Here are a few of the paintings that are starting to show some promise:

After school on Wednesday my husband and I celebrated his birthday. Thursday was uneventful and today we started the day with a special breakfast to celebrate World Teachers’ Day. The shirts for the cross country meet arrived today and B and I opened up the report card program on the computer for the teachers so that they could start preparing for the progress reports which are due in three weeks.

This weekend I hope to get the farmers’ market again. We’ve been invited to a surprise birthday party on Saturday and on Sunday the family is getting together to celebrate K’s birthday. Hooray for weekends!

Kandinsky Rocks!

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…the boys and girls loved this lesson and boasted to their parents how they learned about Wassily Kandinsky

I’ve used Kandinsky’s Concentric Circles in art lessons in the past but I loved the twist that I used on this one. I actually got the idea from one of the blogs I follow but I’ve spent hours trying to find it so that I can give credit where credit is due. I changed it slightly so that the students could experience a different medium other than pencil crayon.

I talked about how Kandinsky was one of the first creators of abstract art and how an experiment in colour theory ended up being one of his most famous pieces. I set up stations with Sharpies and squares of drawing paper, watercolour paints, crayons and watercolour paper squares, oil pastels and squares of brown paper and the last station had squares of bristol board, glue, scissors and a box of assorted papers and calendars.

At each station the students were instructed to create 3 squares with the medium at the table. They had to draw concentric circles but they could be as creative with them as they wanted. When all 12 squares were done the students were given a piece of black construction paper and then asked them to arrange the squares in a pleasing combination. I helped them glue on the first square and then they were left on their own to line up and glue the remaining squares.

I think the finished product is beautiful and no two are the same.

Can you tell which one is mine? Most of these were done by grade 3 students.

Pouring Down Rain

Posted on September 8, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….not the best day to visit the McMichael Art Gallery

You might think that visiting an art gallery when it’s raining ‘cats and dogs’ is the best time to visit an art gallery. Not so, at least not when you go to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg. The gallery is situated on 100 acres of beautiful conservation land which you can explore through a network of paths and trails. One of the first things we noticed, even in the pouring rain, was the intoxicating scent of the trees that surround the gallery and line the pathways throughout the grounds.

After we had made plans to go to the gallery with A and J, my husband realized that this was also the weekend of the Binder Twine Festival in Kleinburg. Normally you can’t get near the place during the festival but because of the rain we were able to drive straight onto the McMichael property.

The gallery was featuring two of my favourite photographers, Ansel Adams and Edward Burtynsky.

http://www.tfaoi.com/cm/4cm/4cm227.jpg

http://www.modto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Edward-Burtynsky-Oil-Spill_4_oil_skimming_boat_near_ground_zero_gulf_of_mexico_2010_lg-e1284764201203.jpg

As in most galleries, I couldn’t photograph the actual works of these great photographers so I found a couple of pictures from the internet to share with you. Both these examples were at the show.

The gallery itself looks like a chalet set among the trees and as you walk in you are greeted by a large, high ceiling and very open lobby. On the far wall, large glass windows that go from the floor to the ceiling look over the thickly wooded conservation area. Tables and chairs welcome visitors to sit and relax while they contemplate whether to start their tour on the upper level where the featured artists are or stay on the main level to view the large permanent collection of the Group of Seven.

The gallery also houses beautiful Aboriginal and Inuit art on both levels.

On our way out and back to the parking lot we passed a couple of the sculptures that line the paths throughout the grounds and we stopped briefly at Tom Thomson’s Cabin which had been relocated to Kleinburg. The building originally came from the grounds of the Studio Building in Rosedale, Toronto where the Group of Seven worked from. Tom Thomson couldn’t afford the rent in the main building so he rented the refurbished workmen’s shed for $1.00 a month.

For more information about the McMichael Canadian Art Collection you can click here.

Four Days Down

Posted on September 6, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….and I’m still standing

I started writing this yesterday and I finished the whole piece when I pushed the save button for the last time. I had just added my tags and when I went to preview the post I discovered that an hours worth of work wasn’t there. Oddly enough the tags were there but all the photos and links had disappeared. I tried every thing to find the missing work but to no avail. I have no idea what I did but I was too tired to rewrite the piece so I went to bed hoping the the work would show up the next day. Unfortunately it didn’t so here I am rewriting the post again.

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School started on Tuesday and four classrooms in our school had been converted into temporary kindergarten classes. A flood earlier in the summer delayed the construction on our new kindergarten addition. The workers were pulled from our job site to repair the damage that occurred in other schools. Needless to say, opening day was far from a normal day.

As I suspected the library was one of the classes affected. Two of the four kindergarten classes have since been able to move into their new spaces but the class in the library wasn’t one of them. In fact it will probably be another six days before the other two classes can move into their new homes.

So it’s art on a cart, which I’m used to anyway but now I also have to do library in a box as I travel from room to room. The staff is anxious to start using the library but I’m not able to unpack my books or rearrange the furniture for at least anther week. It’s a maze of boxes and book stands.

The kids have been great. They look forward to art classes and every class has greeted me with cheers and hugs. I started each class reading the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds.

This is a wonderful book about making your mark in life. Vashti, the main character in the book insists that she can’t draw and her teacher encourages her to put a mark on her blank paper and see where it takes her.

From here I introduced Wassily Kandinsky’s Study of Concentric Circles. Kandinsky never intended to sell his study of circles. He merely wanted to experiment with colour theory and see how colours looked when they were painted side by side. Little did he know that this would become an important piece of work in the art world.

I’ve used this lesson with every class so far. This was one of my very first art lessons when I first started teaching my own art over 14 years ago. This time around I added a new twist to the assignment with the older students. I will share the results with you later next week when they finish the project.

Yesterday I was asked to give an art lesson to the JK/SK class. I came across a wonderful blog, Prek+K Sharing, that focuses on lessons for very young children and lo and behold I found an art lesson using Kandinsky’s Concentric Circles. I decided to use crayons with the junior students and let the seniors use the watercolours. I’m glad I did. The difference in abilities between the 3/4 year olds and the 5 year olds was quite amazing. All in all I was very pleased with the outcome.

From Red to Green

Posted on August 24, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….after two years of looking at this piece of art work I finally changed it

I knew when I started this piece that it wasn’t turning out the way I had hoped. Yesterday I finally pulled out the few paints I had with me at the cottage, set up the easel and went to work to “fix it”. I went to the opposite end of the colour wheel and started to cover the red with greens, blue greens and blues.

When I paint I don’t always have an image in mind. I just go where the colours take me. I am so much happier with this new piece. I’ve signed it and am declaring it finished.

My Summer Art Projects

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Mama Cormier

……in Ireland and at the cottage

I try to gather my art supplies together in the summer and make a concerted effort to practise my drawing skills, something that I feel I’m very inadequate at. I know it would be better to draw a little bit everyday but between reading and life in general it seems to fall by the wayside, especially when I start back at school.

On our trip to Ireland I purchased a small sketch pad and a black gel pen and put them to use on our train trip to Westport. We had a table between us, which made it very easy for sketching. I attempted to sketch some of the landscape that we passed and I even tried to do a portrait of my husband. Any of you who know him or have seen pictures of him can quickly assess that my attempt doesn’t look that much like him. Of course he wasn’t being particularly cooperative when he knew what I was doing.

The one thing that I really enjoy doing is Zentangle art. As the name implies it is very relaxing and the process is very satisfying. Our trip inspired me to include images and words of Ireland in the Zentangle that I did on the train.

Earlier in June I discovered a great website through Art Expectations, hosted by Carla Sonheim. She offers on-line workshops and I purchased her Gelli Plate Printmaking course,Carla Sonheim. Luckily you can access the videos anytime and as often as you need once you’ve purchased a class. With June being as busy as it was I didn’t get to trying this method until a couple of weeks ago.

Here are some of the prints that I made. I’m not sure that any of them are worthy of framing but the whole idea behind gelli printing is creating a large number of prints at one time and then deciding which you like. You can always go back later and add more detail or use the prints as background for another art project. I chose to do the later with one of the prints. I wondered what a circular Zentangle would look like on a printed background.

During our trip to Westport, Ireland I was completely impressed by the wonderful hospitality that our bed and breakfast hosts showered upon us. Both my husband and I felt that they went above and beyond to make our stay enjoyable and for that reason I wanted to do something special for them. For that reason I created a Zentangle in honour of the Elephant Guest House, Westport, Clew Bay and Croagh Patrick. If you look closely you can see that I have written little messages throughout the circle and included images of some of the sights in Westport.

I’m hoping to frame the piece with a mat but I haven’t decided if I should use a round mat or a square one. I made a temporary paper mat to see which I preferred and took photos of both. Do you have a preference?

I only have a couple of days left at the cottage before I return home so I’m trying to create a few more drawings. I have a large painting here that I’ve never finished, so maybe I’ll pull out my paints and add some more detail to the canvas. But before I do that I want to go for a swim. The only problem with reading and painting here at the cottage is that it gets in the way of my physical activity. I’m feeling a little bit guilty about that and am actually looking forward to our walks when I get home.

Drop me a line in the comment box and let me know how you think I should frame my round Zentangle. I’d like to mail it to Westport as a gift to our hosts.

Installation Art Along the Shores of Lake Ontario

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…..Inuksuit made with 21st century rubble

Colonel Sam Smith Park, on the shores of Lake Ontario, at the south end of Etobicoke was recently extended into the lake with landfill. It is one of Toronto’s newest and largest waterfront parks. Much of the park was created in front of the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital and the RL Clark Filtration Plant. The waterfront lakefill area is mainly naturalized with grasses, shrubs and small trees. The shoreline is a combination of rocky headlands, cobble beaches and protected wetland. This blends further north into the mature trees and mowed lawns of the former hospital grounds and now the site for Humber College.

This is the park that Frances, my husband and I walked through every day (when I’m not at the cottage or away). This morning on our usual walk to the point I noticed that there were more pieces of installation art that someone has created, using the bricks and rubble from the landfill along the shoreline.

The sculptures were intended to look like inuksuit, a native stone landmark or cairn built and used by the Inuit, Inupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America.

An inuksuk was originally built as a travel marker for camps, hunting grounds, food caches and sometimes burial grounds. For more information about the inuksuk, check the Wikipedia site, here.