she paints; she is a painter

In a previous post I described how I met Liz Russ and started being involved with showing my work in Gallery 888. This post will continue the story of how the “Journeys” Shows evolved.

The idea was germinated at the cabin in Algonquin Park. Those of us who originally had the faith and imagination to accept the invitation to the “art week-end” already shared something of a common spirit. Of course, it was Liz in her infinite generosity who proposed we have a group show at 888. While I had already experienced the exhibition process, some of the others needed a bit of persuasion. But eventually a group esprit pervaded and the show idea took on its own life! Most of us had all been in the watercolor classes at the AGO for a few years, while Liz, Sheila and Mado had already moved to acrylics, at least part time. Everyone had a backlog of art pieces.  The first step in the commitment was for each of us to decide on an image for the publicity show card and  gallery website, and a name for our exhibition.  Since many of us had traveled to Santa Fe together and had the weekends at Source Lake in Algonquin, we decided to call the show “Journeys”.

We were slated for the mid two weeks in April, therefore the images had to be ready in January for the Spring shows. Gallery policy.

Since this blog is about me, I’ll tell you my part. I had just been in the Christmas Show and had exhibited all my “good stuff”, so for the show card I gave one of my animal images. We still had about 5 months to get things together. The pressure was on!!  … We were each contracted to show a particular piece. There was no backing out!

By Mid-winter we gathered at my house for a framing workshop. I had had courses in mat cutting and owned all the equipment necessary, the Logan mat cutter etc. We purchased full sheets of museum quality, acid-free mat boards (many framing shops do not necessarily bother to provide a product of this standard!). The solid wood frames came from Victor Gallery on Queen West. We chose the compositions, assessed the best mat size, bevel cut the board openings, hinge-matted with acid-free linen tape ( that means the art work never touches anything not acid-free), cleaned the glass, assembled the matted piece within the frame, checked for any specks, attached work to frame with a point driver, added a dust cover backing and screwed in the loops for the hanging wire. … Maybe this is more than you want to know about framing, but this is the process that is necessary to protect works on paper.

I hardly remember this show. I had some good figure pieces, some landscapes and a still life, as  my usual. The excitement was in the shared experience. The intensity of working so closely together further solidified our bonded relationship. This was the beginning of a wonderful co-operation of encouraging one another and developing our dreams. If pictures of this show’s opening night come my way, I’ll include them in the next post. I do remember the exhilaration of the crowded gallery.

To be continued…

In the end we each exhibited about 10 images which were hung in an intermixed style. These were my new pieces: