Experimental Studios 3

Blog Post – Rebecca Belmore

Rebecca Belmore is a member of the Lac Seoul First Nation (Anishinaabe), and is known as a multidisciplinary contemporary artist. Her art practice is grounded by current; participating in a call to action. Most of her work is her responding to current issues like land and water rights, violence against Indigenous people by the government, and the role of the artist in contemporary life(to name a few).

Torch, 2014 Photograph

This work connects the symbolism of the Lady Liberty statue to the forced displacement of Indigenous peoples. Bound by the flag holding uprooted long black hair instead of the torch of enlightenment. Belmore’s ability to make a clear statement to her wide audience by using symbolism to make people think deeper about the violent impact colonialism has. Even though this work isn’t directly interacting with nature, it is definitely responding to North American (Lady Liberty symbolism) Indigenous Peoples land being stollen(flags), and their populations being forcibly displace(uprooted long black hair).

Wave Sound, 2017, Sculpture

Rebecca Belmore created sculptures for a handful of National Parks, with the intent to encourage visitors to pause and listen to to the natural sound scape of the land. The sculpture’s are in the shape of a horn that varies in aesthetics to fit the landscape for example; length – using rocks in the landscape to keep it propped up, material – blend in with surroundings, etc.. The sculptures themselves are quite large but, there is only ever enough space for one person to listen at a time and they are quite low to the ground forcing the listener to get close and personal, creating an intimate setting to reflect on your relationship with nature. Each sculpture had a lot of thought put into it, in order to respond to all the different locations but also research in order to know what shape and what materials are needed to amplify the sounds that surround it.

Some more interesting work!

Book Stacks

I chose to look through my recently deceased Mother’s library for this assignment. I started off with the intent to find books that might relate back to our relationship and where she searched for parenting advice. I started with trying to think of it as a possible order of events to why she even wanted kids to begin with. Then I chose to humorously demonstrate a sort of escalation in my mum’s searching for some sort of control while raising me, the spirited child. I enjoyed getting to know my mother better while looking through her book collection; I could tell which books were her favourites, the ones she must of started many times but could never finish, others that had no interest to her and were obviously bought so she could learn more about her loved ones interests like hockey, I found books that looked all to familiar, books that have survived decades of school children’s sticky little hands, and of course her paper cover copies of her favourite books that she annotated. This insight into my mum only happened when I stepped away from how the books related to our relationship and focused more on building imagery through story telling or humour. Having to categorize Her books with a different intention had me pay closer attention to all the little details, things that would be normally overlooked.

Blog Post – Environmental Video Art Proposal

A lot of time went into the HOW of it all. In order to make our paints we needed to understand each step of the process; from foraging materials and extracting the refined pigment, to making binders and additives, and the crucial ratios. Our video cycles through each step for each pigment with a focus on the mixing of the pigment and the binders.

Video Art

We really wanted to follow our intuition and use everyday items when it came to selecting pigments but also keep in mind some more modern ways to forage pigments. We made sure that we had an array of different materials like stone, leaves, flowers, berries, ash, household items, studio items etc.. This practice reconnects you to your environment because it forces you to pay attention to your surroundings in a different way. Some examples of contemporary methods of foraging are listed bellow.

Flour – Frothy Ivory – foraged for pigments in own pantry

House Brick – Salmon Blush – Foraged for pigments by scraping the brick from my own home

Weed Leaves – Oui’d – Foraged through community

Rubber Car Mat – Car Sludge – Foraged from the car mat from the passengers side of my car. This paint has a little piece of everyone/ everywhere I’ve been

Blue Acrylic Paint – Liquid Plastic – Foraged from Becca’s home studio. Great to expand the life of your paint.

Lavender Incense Ash – Cleansing – foraged from alters

Assorted leaves – Tina Belchers Zombie Boyfriend in a jar – Foraged by lying down on the ground waiting for leaves to land on us.

It’s quite poetic if you think about all the effort that was put into each step but the videos of mixing the pigments and binders together is what memorizes the viewer.

Field Trip!

Book

Becca and I wanted to create a book that details how we made each pigment from our video. Our goal was to document our process in an educational way to encourage others to also participate in this practice. We created two books, one that is able to be printed and the other acts as the original that can forever be added to.

BOOK SPREADS

Both Books

The Original Book Spreads

The images are out of order… the binder clips allow for the pages to be rearranged and for pages to be easily added and removed.

At the end of the book I added pages that are ready for a new pigment and future en plein air paintings using the pigments we made.

-Fun extra Details-

I crochet a bag to hold our book so that it would be easy to transport.

I knot weaved a bookmark using floss and bead’s I already had. I wanted the bookmark to symbolize Becca and I’s collaboration by using the colour palette I associate with Becca and my love for the sky through the bead choice and alien spaceship.

Multiples Project

I was having a difficult time with this project because I was really set on using the scrap art materials I have collected over the years and my idea being representational. So I asked myself what kind of multiples are representational? (wedding rings, military grave markers, religious paraphilia, tourist souvenirs, friendship bracelets, and Kandi at concerts)

All these types of multiples attempt to memorialize a person, relationship, shared experience, place, or promise. I was really drawn to Kandi because, the plastic beaded bracelets/jewellery are exchanged by strangers through an understood mini ceremony.

The bracelets I made are to by given to a stranger when you witness them doing a simple act of kindness. It doesn’t have to be an act of kindness done for you but one you witness. This includes holding doors open, picking up garbage, letting someone cut in front of them, complements, giving directions etc.. The first one I gave was to the women who pulled over and helped me when I got into a car accident on my way to critique.

I crochet bracelets by using floss and beads I already had refusing to waste any floss. The eclectic use of different coloured floss and beads act as a decorative element that implies importance. I also decided on crocheting the bracelets to be representational of a vine to symbolize our growing community and how we are all connected.