Highly Commended and Other Happenings

Merit Award – Parkin Drawing Prize

Last week was the opening of the Parkin Drawing Prize and I was super thrilled to receive one of the 10 highly commended awards.

The judge, Felicity Milburn, Lead Curator Christchurch City Gallery, had this to say about my piece:

“Several of the works I saw took me to a different place, but one seemed to beckon towards another time.

Aragon is a richly worked textile that glows with an almost medieval luster.

Its golden surface hums with tightly contained energies, as lines of tight stitching create both texture and depth.

Despite the sense of movement, it feels almost ceremonial; a strange and beautiful work.”

It is so incredibly cool when someone gets your work so clearly without seeing my artists statement or title.

New Series

This piece is from a brand new series started last year, that I have tentatively titled Synthesis. I’m not exactly sure where the body of work is headed as I’ve just started but I’ve started out with reflections on growing up in Los Alamos, New Mexico which is an interesting mixture of both ancient and modern cultures.

This exhibition is the first time I have shared this new series publicly.

I’ve completed 2 additional pieces in the work and I will be sharing those with my studio newsletter subscribers later this week.

Not a subscriber? Be sure to sign up for my studio newsletter as this will be the only place I share these pieces (for now) as they aren’t yet ready for the spotlight of social media or my website.

Afterwards they will go back undercover as I work out where to go next.

New Work for Colour Offerings

The last few weeks I’ve been focusing on new work for my upcoming two-person show at the Taupo Museum.

In a little more than a week I will be packing up the van and heading to Taupo to install the show and give an artist talk at the opening. So I have been working around the clock finishing up the last few pieces for the show.

Most of the work will be from my Travel Pattern series along with a few older works to provide context.

Two Series at the Same Time

So yes – I’m currently working on two different series at the same time: travel patterns and synthesis.

Over the last 15 years it has been a rare occasion for me to only be working in a single series at a time. Mostly because I have so many ideas.

Although at the start of my 15 year long Structures series (which eventually numbered 200 works) – I did spend the first 3-4 years focused solely on that one series. I was just at the start of finding and clarifying my voice. Focusing on a single series helped me do that.

Now that I have confidence and clarity in my voice, I find it much easier to branch out a bit more.

I do tend to focus on only one and a time over a short period. Rarely do I work in both series during the same week.

I find it distracting and I lose focus if I switch between them too frequently.

Create a Body of Work

My other project this month is setting up the website and getting everything ready for the 2022 session of Create a Body of Work. I only teach 1 session of the program each year and the new session starts in September.

One of the things we will talk about is how each of the participants best works. For some, a single point of focus is best. For others, having a couple of series going at the same time is a better fit.

We also talk a lot about ideas. And how we keep track of our ideas. The term I use for this is an idea warehouse. Again – every artist has a different way of gathering ideas and keeping track of them.

This is why the program includes individual coaching calls in the curriculum. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to being an artist.

Enrollment is now open and the course is already half full – and we’d love to have you join us!

If you have any questions about the course please let me know. You can read more about it an enroll here: Create a Body of Work.