CRAZY ART - Summer Art Reading

Submitted by: Vivian Orr, Communications and Publications Coordinator

In a creative drought? Feeling inspiration challenged?

Check out CRAZY ART by Chantal Allès (available through the Saskatoon Public Library, Fine Arts collection). It will kick start your imagination!

CRAZY ART blows away preconceived ideas about what constitutes “art” and demonstrates creativity, imagination and craftsmanship are not the sole domain of the painter, sculptor or photographer.

Filled with amazing photos and short write-ups on the artists and their works, you will flip through a wonderland of balloon creatures (Jason Hackenweth), Lego constructs (Nathan Sawaya), camouflage (Emma Hack) and illusion (John Pugh).

See works that range from delicate carved pencil tips (Dalton Ghetti) to monumental underwater sculptures (Jason de Caires Taylor). Jaw dropping pavement art (Kurt Wenner) and stunning recycled plastic sculptures (Aurora Robson) are featured next to SOOO NOT politically correct tattooed pigs (Wim Delvoye) and disturbing performance art involving raw meat (Zhang Huan).

Inspired by fantasy landscapes (Carl Warner), creatures which walk across landscapes (Theo Jansen) or paper cityscapes (Jeff Nishinaka) you will find all that and more in CRAZY ART. It is a fun, fast and fascinating summer read!

Published by Vivays Publishing in 2011. ISBN 978-1-908126-08-5

Public Art: Sustainable Sculpture and Street Meet

Submitted by: Amanda Bosiak, Member Services

People attending the Cathedral Village Arts Festival in Regina last month might have noticed some strange and wonderful installations hugging otherwise normal trees on 13th Avenue.

Sustainable Sculpture Installation in Regina, May 2013

This riot of fabric and colour was a project for the Sustainable Approaches to 3-Dimensional Form at the University of Regina. The class (Sustainable Sculpture for short) is taught by artist Tamara Rusnak, who also received her Masters in Fine Art at the U of R in 2010.

Rusnak is a painter and sculpture, and a staunch believer in being mindful of the products we use on a daily basis. While working on her undergraduate degree in painting at UBC, she realized that while many artists are inspired by the natural world, they tend to use manufactured products to create their works of art. She was no exception to that, and in becoming more conscious of her own consumer consumption in her practice, began to find ways to reduce her environmental imprint as an artist. This led to the use of salvaged materials in the place of canvas, and creating her own paint with natural pigments derived from plants and minerals. Rusnak says, "There's a real pleasure in knowing where your materials come from."

Culture Days - Invitation

Submitted by: Cindy Hoppe, Fibre Artist

Hello, Folks. I have promised Amanda to write a few blogs from time to time, so bear with me.  As a grandma who grew up in a family that preferred ‘show me’ to ‘tell me,’ I am not all that comfortable with revealing some of the thought that creeps across my brain pan in the creative process, but maybe if I get out of my comfort zone and learn to articulate what’s going on, who knows where that may lead? 

I just wanted to draw the craft community’s attention to something going on that SCC members may be interested in participating in. Sask Culture, which is funded through Sask Lotteries, is sponsoring Culture Days the last weekend of September.  Apparently there were grants available this year, although the deadline (May 15) has come and gone. The idea is to celebrate the wealth of cultural activity throughout the province and expose people to new activities or interests. The activities need to provide free access to people and the possibility of interaction or participation to engage the public. 

University of Saskatchewan, Museum of Antiquities
Culture Days 2012

Culture Days is a collaborative, pan-Canadian, annual initiative that aims to raise awareness, accessility, participation and engagement by all people in the cultural life of their local communities. 

Yarn-Bombing: Craftivism and Urban Aesthetic

Submitted by: Maia Stark, Gallery Assistant

“Yarn-bombing” goes by many different names: “guerilla knitting,” “yarn-storming,” “urban knitting,” and even “grandmotherly graffiti,” just to name a few. What these various names have in common is the particular presentation of a particular medium: that of knitted or crocheted pieces left it in public spaces. These works are often wrapped around static objects, such as trees, fire hydrants, phone booths, poles, fences, and more.

Many yarn bombers play on the idea of making “cozies” for unconventional objects: for example, pictured above, a bicycle wrapped in a cozy by recognized fibre artist Agata Oleksiak.

Yarn-bombing has become a dynamic and acknowledged form of public art over the last ten years, as “bombed” spaces from all over the world gain attention in the media. The roots of this movement can be tied to “craftivism,” a term coined to signify the merging of crafting with activism: “craftivism is a way of looking at life where voicing opinions through creativity makes your voice stronger, your compassion deeper and your quest for justice more infinite.” (Betsy Greer,  qtd. By Wallace, Yarn Bombing, Knit Graffiti, and Underground Brigades). Early craftivists include artists such as Judy Chicago and Joyce Wieland in the 1970’s and 80’s. Craft as a subversive form was used by such artists as a method of feminist expression and as a critique of the male-dominated art world (Wallace, Yarn Bombing…). Current public art which incorporates craft owes its legacy to early craftivism, though of course yarn-bombing or other types of public craft need not necessarily work under their predecessor’s political motivations. Yarn-bombing can simply work under the desire to bring beauty into a public space.