Mark your calender!

We have been creating rocks, flowers, leaves and grasses for the installation, and the first exhibition is scheduled for December 18th, 2015 at Wave Pool Gallery in Cincinnati, OH.

In Patterned Spaces
Date: December 18th, 2015
Time: Backer's Party 6-7pm, Opening Reception 7-10pm
Location:
Wave Pool Gallery
2940 Colerain Ave.
Cincinnati, OH 45225

After the show we will update our blog with pictures of the installation for everyone who isn't able to make it out to Cincinnati on December 18th.

Here's a sneak peak of the components we've making.

Rewards in Production

We are working on making quail note cards and tumblers. As you can see from the photos below we are back to working in the basement. We miss Canada and mountains. We will begin sending out rewards in May.

Casting octagonal tumblers.

Tumbler with lawn chairs.

Ah, Canada...

What's next?

It's good to be home, and we have begun the next phase of our installation. Our plan is include flowers we'll make from porcelain as an element in the installation. We've begun experimentation on how to construct the flowers. Spring is the perfect time for this exploration!

Inspiration!

We're Back!

Our last two weeks at Banff were a bit of a blur. We installed and documented our work in the Banff Centre's gallery space called the Philosopher's Knoll. We had studio visits with curators and made even more wallpaper to prepare for the Open Studios event. It was productive to get feedback from visitors from the Banff Centre and the surrounding community. Visitors especially responded to the scale and texture of the work which we found encouraging. We feel fortunate to have had the opportunity, space and time to begin working on a large-scale project.

Documenting in the Philosopher's Knoll.

Quails in Patterned Spaces.

Julia in patterned spaces.

Foam and feathers in profile.

Texture!

We made this.

Getting some love from Resident Artists Claudia and Ana.

Admiring the scenic view.

We're home! (Take note of our crafty duct tape duffel to bring home our unused paper.)

A day away from the studio and a Lake Louise hike

Christy standing on frozen Lake Louise.

It was a beautiful day for a hike and a group of almost 30 visual artists and musicians from the Banff Centre took a bus about 60km and spent the afternoon hiking around Lake Louise. At this time of year Lake Louise is completely frozen, so many people were enjoying the sunshine, walking around and even playing hockey on the lake.

View from the hike up to the tea house.

 We decided to take a 3.8km (about 2 miles) hike up the mountain. The map promised a tea house at the top and for most of the hike I was motivated by visions of hot cocoa or hot milky tea. The air was incredibly dry, and I drank all of my water before reaching the top of our hike. The snow packed beautifully, and we were surprised to find our hands dry after forming dense, hard snowballs. The water evaporated from our hands almost instantly. The altitude made for much heavy breathing as we made our way up the hill.

Tall trees (maybe spruce?) and a steep fall. It was warm in the sun.

About a half mile from the top a few hikers told us the tea house was closed in the winter. Disappointment rippled through our group, but we were still determined to make it the tea house for the view, even if there was no cocoa or snacks to be had.

Seema, Guillaume, Anna, Maike and a bold bird.

Guillaume brought some dried fruit and nuts which he generously shared and a couple of bold birds were hanging around for scraps and posing for photos. We saw two birds at the top of our climb, and I wondered if they followed us up, wanting to keep the trail mix in sight.

Taking a break with Elida and Maike to enjoy the view. 

After the hike we had snacks and warm drinks at Chateau Lake Louise, the hotel that overlooks the lake. It was lovely and refreshing to spend time outdoors. Looking forward to getting back in the studio for more quails and wallpaper tomorrow!

Testing Gold Leaf

The time is just flying by... We've been here for two weeks already, and we have gotten a ton of work done.

Even though we came with a plan and had done some material testing, many challenges have come up as we've been working on the project. It's okay though because problem-solving is one of our favorite parts about making art. We've been thinking that our wall paper is a little too subtle, maybe it needs a little oomph! Julia suggested adding gold leaf to some of the square spaces in the wallpaper. We picked up some imitation gold leaf from an art supply store in Calgary on Friday and did some testing on scraps of paper. Gold leaf is super delicate, probably the thinnest solid material that I have ever used. It is also so lovely. After testing it on the paper we wanted to gold leaf our bodies. We even put it on a scrap piece of spray foam which instantly transformed that hideous material into something almost gorgeous. That may take a few more tries.

We plan to begin gold leafing wall paper tomorrow and then hanging it on the wall. We also purchased some acid-free linen tape in Calgary which we will use to reinforce the wallpaper so we can tack it up in our studio and later remove it to ship it home. We'll post photos when we get it installed. Check out photos of the imitation gold leaf tests below, and you'll see why we want to gold leaf everything.

The gold leaf will be in some of the square spaces (where the tape is in this photo.)

So delicate! Sheets of imitation gold leaf.

 

Gold leaf on spray foam.

Gold leaf adhesive and tests on paper.

Lovely! Gold leaf on paper.

Quails & Foam & Feathers

We've made progress on our quails!

This past week we worked ever so slowly and patiently on building cardboard armatures and covering them in Great Stuff insulation foam.

That's not true. Actually, we quickly constructed cardboard armatures bound with tape and other studio waste and took them to the sculpture spray booth, which is actually a chilly wind tunnel, and covered them with around 40 cans of foam. It was a a slow, but not so patient process (on my part) that ultimately produced two large blobs loosely based on two of the quails from the Ruby Back Plate with Quails and Chrysanthemums that our project is referencing. 
I've developed more congenial feelings for them since they're out of the spray booth. 

Our quail armatures fresh from the spray booth.

After a little deliberation over feather type and direction, we started hand tearing white and a little cream colored paper to create the feathers for the quails.

Paper feathers and YES! PASTE 

We're using YES! PASTE as our glue to stick the paper feathers to the foam. I'm not entirely sure if the name of this product is fully capitalized, but it is in my heart and this post. 

I've designated this paragraph for discussing the many benefits of  YES! PASTE. Right off the bat, this is the most affirming glue I've encountered. How many products seem to actively want you to believe in yourself and your work? I can only count a few, but this one is by far my favorite. Besides the affirmative label, this paste is archival, dries matte and clear, and has a thick body. We can dip our paper feathers into the tub and stick them directly on the foam. Our lives are constantly made better by YES! PASTE. 

Beginning stages of foam with paper feathers

We've spent the last couple of days tearing feathers and applying them to our foam armatures. It's a slow process, but we're really enjoying it. This component of our project has been a nice deviation from the labor intensive process of measuring, masking, and painting wall paper. I think we're both feeling excited by the progress the quails have undergone during the last two days and are looking forward to experiencing them totally covered in paper feathers. 

If you happen to think of us during your day, know we're probably (hopefully merrily) applying little bits of torn paper to large foam forms.