How do I raise the level of my art if I don’t know the height of the bar? This year I am making a conscious effort to update my art education by means other than just touring virtual art galleries. So….
… on Tuesday I paddled on over to the Art Gallery of Mississauga (AGM) to check out Highlights, a new, free art lecture series held the last Tuesday of each month. This month‘s Highlights was a guided tour of “Sally Thurlow: Canoe Dreamings “ (on until July 15th). For info, click http://www5.mississauga.ca/agm/Exhibitions/Exhibitions.htm
If you are new to art, particularly sculpture, and normally only appreciate something more traditional, this is good show for you to test the waters of the contemporary art scene. Striking in scale, form, and vision, these sculptures can be admired solely on the artist’s technical ability alone. Like sewing? You will gasp at the fabric canoe. Been in a row boat? Wait ‘til you see the paper one. And I bet you never would dream of a shredded tire as a Viking boat.
Now, look a little closer. You will discover layers of thoughtful symbolism on femininity, feminism, culturalism, suburban sprawl, native history, Canada, and more .
This show is a prime example of why one must take a break and see art for real. Although this show made me salivate over how beautifully it would photograph, it’s beauty can never properly be appreciated on the 2D computer screen. This is a show that makes use of the natural light and shape of the gallery it is in. This is a show that needs to be seen big! In fact, this is a show that must change with every gallery it visits. In the AGM it was still, and dreamy. Lower the ceiling height, darken the wall colour, take away the natural lighting or change the room shape and the mood of the show must alter. It is an installation in flux.
L-o-o-o-ng ago, in the galleries I visited in Europe, students would be drawing or painting works by the grand masters before them. It would be magnificent to see what art could be inspired by the images in this show.
After the tour & talk, I made my own origami canoe under the tutelage of artist & teacher, Joe of the Gallery. Childish? Not at all. The careful, precise hands on creation of our own little paper canoes, drove home how much care must have gone into the precise, large, beautiful sculpture by Ms. Thurlow. No wonder it took 7 years to complete the 12 pieces of this series.
Epilogue: “Always paddle your own canoe“…the sage advice written in my autograph book when I was 9, by my hardworking, homesteading, World War I Grandmother. Well, I’m trying.
I’d love to hear your comments on anything art related-What art education venues are in your area?What shows have you gone to recently that you thought eye opening? Do you know of a show that you think would appeal to the elite art eye as well as the one new to looking at art ?Do you think it even matters as an artist to have knowledge of other art?
What is art to you?
P.S. there is a lot of free parking around the AGM. The AGM is a lovely public gallery hidden away in the Mississauga Civic Centre and I suspect its existence is a secret to most people in Mississauga. Although the lecture is free it is possible to make a donation in a box at the entrance.
