On Thursday, September 27, 2018, over 30 guests visited Studio22 and participated in an intimate discussion with artist J.T. Winik and hear about her background and inspiration for her latest exhibit, Enigma Variations. We thank all those who attended!
Learn more about J.T Winik
Learn more about Enigma Variations
https://soundcloud.com/studio22-sounds/maggie-sutherland-talks-bodies-politics-and-art-with-aviva-jacob
https://soundcloud.com/studio22-sounds/an-informal-conversation-with-aviva-jacob-julie-davidson-smith
Avi Jacob interviews Phillida Hargreaves
For local artist, Phillida Hargreaves, the world of art is “totally open.” She works in her home in a bright room with large bay windows overlooking lake and trees – full of life all year round. Phillida works with fabrics and wool to create scenes both imagined and witnessed.
Entering her work space I find myself face-to-face with narrow city sprawl hanging from the walls. I turn around and the world transforms into a serene river flowing across to the other side of the room.
“What draws me to fabrics is the texture… it’s all texture,” says Hargreaves.
She walks me through her process of travelling around the world to see beautiful scenes and returning home to mimic and twist them into her own creations. She tells me that some of her pieces may be recognizable to those who have visited the places themselves and others are all her own.
“It’s wonderfully unpredictable,” she says with a smile.
As she continues to walk me through her space she comes to a dresser on the edge of the room where she opens up what seems like an endless number of fabric filled drawers. She pulls felt in all shapes and sizes, fabrics patterned and plain, yarn and wool as far as the eye can see.
She shows me examples of different techniques used to manipulate fabrics in order to create the effects shown in her current work. She uses “Fulling,” the act of knitting wool into a shape and then washing and shrinking it, to fit extra texture into her pieces.
With her sewing machine currently out of commission she has been trying out some work with an Embellisher. The machine, which is traditionally used for felting, uses a series of up to seven needles to create texture by pulling the fibre back through itself. Hargreaves describes it as “a very mechanical look”.
As she sifts through her different materials she tells me that she dyes most of her fabrics herself to get exactly the effect she needs.
“It’s endless what you can do with a white piece of cloth and with this series I wanted to be a bit more careful. There was a lot of experimenting in order to find what was right.” says Hargreaves of her latest series ‘Narrow Spaces’, to be shown at Studio 22.
The series consists of fifteen pieces all of an urban nature with a tight and narrow quality. Taking in the work I feel as though I am walking through several cities and touring the most beautiful places all in one room.
As my tour comes to a close it becomes apparent that Hargreaves finds so much joy and delight in what she does. Her work is entirely her own and entirely experimental. She slowly works and reworks until she’s satisfied. The nature of fabrics allows the artist flexibility and unlimited opportunities to create.
“That’s the beauty of it. It might be done but if I don’t like it I’m just going to try it again.”
Local artist Debra Krakow lives with her family on Wolfe Island in a beautiful self-designed home. As an architect Krakow designed the house for her young family in the mid 90s. At the top of this tall, yellow structure sits a small, bright studio, tailor made by and for the artist who resides in it.
Walking through the family home I am bombarded with colour and texture filling all possible hanging space on the walls. I am charmed by the beautiful music floating from the piano in the living room, filling the whole house (not to mention the homemade cookies and peppermint tea I am offered upon arrival).
The art, though covering a spectrum of styles and mediums, is amazingly produced by the same artist. Krakow uses her home and personal space as a platform to display her art to her family and guests when it’s not being shown in galleries throughout Ontario.
While climbing the final stairs to reach the glowing room at the peak of the house I find myself entering a blooming garden of warm colours and textures just leaping off every wall and surface. Looking out the windows I can see a full one-hundred and eighty degrees along the shore of the island and up the road. The space is light and, though chilly in the winter, it’s warm in colour and more full of life than the view outside the windows.
The warm tones in Debra’s work draw me closer as I examine each piece in the room. She explains her process of adding quilting and sewing techniques to her paintings and shows me each of her tools and brushes in great detail.
In the far right corner of the room there are four pieces hanging together which perfectly demonstrate the techniques being described to me. On top of the 3-D brush strokes on the canvases hang gorgeous patterns of thread in even brighter and warmer tones.
One piece becomes reminiscent of a glistening yellow spider web hanging from small branches as the sun sets behind. Another is a garden with beautiful thread vines growing throughout. The textures created by the thread are wonderfully woven and sewn into the foreground, seemingly just sitting atop the canvas.
Each piece has a feeling unique to itself but together Krakow’s work flows into a common theme. Her body of work feels natural, growing, and full of life.
Not all of the pieces are abstractions of nature, though. Many of the works consist of massive, sweeping brush strokes which carry your eye from each corner of the canvas. The artist talks me through the very process of creating these pieces; moving large, wet globs of paint onto a canvas spread on the floor of her studio.
The paint spattered floor shows a history of her process, a timeline of the works created there.
The house, the studio and the artistic family within it were all created by the very same artist. Debra Krakow’s body of work is ever expanding past the walls of her home and her beautiful space.
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