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What's New - Archive |
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Our archive of past "What's New" articles is below.
Summer 2008: “In the haunted house of life…” “In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn’t creak.” So says beat author, Tom Robbins, in his quirky 1990 novel, “Skinny Legs and All”.Because Fall isn’t my favourite time of year, and because that’s when the woes of the world come into focus again, become a sort of ‘haunted house’, I don’t look forward to the end of glorious Summer. Apart from the changing colours of the leaves – nature’s own beauteous tapestry – the Fall signals the dark and bleak month of November. Winter has some charms and intermittent high points but also dirty, slushy, sloppy, snow. Did anyone predict the many mountains of snow we received this past Winter? However, I digress. A couple seasons have passed since our last entry to the What’s New page, and Summer appears to have finally returned…and artistic spirit marches on. The painters are still picking up their brushes and rebranding the world, the woodturners transforming those chunks of firewood into the most amazing, gleaming, sensual shapes, the sculptors carving and assembling bits of this and that in their quest for wisdom, the fabric artists stitching together their vision of the world, and, despite trepidation, the ceramic artists eagerly open the cooling kiln to uncover the treasures within.
Artists work resolutely to understand a mixed up universe, to create a world that makes sense, a world that can remind us of the awesomeness of nature and of the human mind. In short, they strive to ensure that in the haunted house of life, art is the solid board that doesn’t creak!
Take, for example, Stephanie Ford Forrester’s fabric wall piece, “Winds of Change”, expertly hand appliqued and hand quilted using Dupioni silks and luxurious cottons. It is visually stunning, yes, but, like others in her Winds of Change and Tree of Life series, this one explores the connection between tradition and changing times, and deftly draws us into its dialogue. The tree is rooted firmly in tradition - the base of the hanging exhibits a dark band of olive silk on which tiny stitches depict an uncompromising, conventional, celtic knot. But the stitching on the next band of lighter blue silk plays around with the celtic knot theme a bit. Then, on either side of the trunk of the tree, the lighter grey silk background shimmers with stitches of vines that swirl in a dance of unrestricted freedom, perhaps in a celebration of life. Above, the branches of the tree bend gently with the prevailing wind as though in resignation of changing times.
There continues to be debate about the role of the painter and what makes a particular work good, or even great. The controversy in the Fall over the Robert Bateman retrospective at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection reinvigored the debate of the place of illustration painting and, specifically, the role of art that imitates nature. Contemporaneous with that debate is the criticism of the commodification of art via the mass reproduction of original paintings: offset lithographic prints which are often marketed as “fine art”. The terminology limited edition is used to elevate the status and value of these reproductions. Some criticize that the public is lured into paying many hundreds or many thousands of dollars for what are, essentially, posters of original paintings, with either implied or stated promises that the poster will increase in value. That the poster is numbered and signed by the artist simply means that the painter is authenticating that this is a reproduction of his or her original work, that it is number 6,565 of the total of 8,000 images reproduced. The only value of reproduction of original paintings, and admittedly, it is important to avoid minimizing this value, is to make images accessible to the masses. If one can only afford an offset lithograph of an original painting, there is nothing wrong with that. But the buyer should also understand that the value of a reproduction is mainly derived from the pleasure of viewing the picture. For some, owning an original print or painting created by the hand of the maker, many of which compete quite nicely with the prices of offset reproductions, is preferred. To return to the debate about illustration painting, the sculptor, Alberto Giacometti, apparently once said, “The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.”
That sentiment is hopefully what guides my selection of painters for the gallery. Kelly Winsa’s pen, ink and watercolours are gentle impressions of people, situations and nature. Patti Fontaine’s intuitive abstracts use colour and texture to make us feel and question the larger world. Susan Fisher’s luminous encaustics explore our spiritual relationship with the earth and our history within it, offering us both snapshots of that connectivity and, in her words, “the concept that energies of ones before remain in things and places they have left – the alchemy perhaps of fusing past and present by objects remaining.”
New painter in the gallery, Jane Eccles, often creates interconnected series of paintings that she reports are “in response to nature or to forces in life and often to death…the paintings do have a dialogue with each other.” Jane’s acrylic paintings often imbue objects with the status of icons, as portrayed in her paintings of women’s vintage dresses. She is fascinated with the relationship between humankind and nature, as seen in her water series juxtaposing the power of the sky and mysterious water with the starkness of the female figure, the figure itself also symbolizing guardianship of nature.
Eccles also has a great interest in people, what drives them and how they think, which opens up interesting opportunities for the painting of portraits “of individuals who have made a difference in my life.” Back in 1986, with the idee fixe that a portrait of Margaret Laurence was the imperative anchor to a grouping of twenty paintings, ten of them portrait and ten symbol paintings, Eccles approached the most iconic of Canadian authors, Margaret Laurence. With some gentle cajoling on the part of Eccles, Laurence finally agreed. The first portrait that Jane produced was edited by Eccles’ then three year old son, who had wandered into her studio one day. A new portrait was painted. But Laurence loved the story of the young art critic. Laurence also agreed to a second, symbol painting, and suggested that Eccles find an “image” from one of her books. Jane ultimately chose delphiniums because “they look tough but must be staked to survive.” The ten portrait, ten symbol, grouping titled “Patch Work” was completed in 1987, just days before Eccles received news of Margaret Laurence’s death. Several women from Peterborough are also featured in Patch Work and the grouping now hangs in the Arts Building at the University of Guelph.
A couple of years ago ceramic artists, Kate Hyde and Thomas Aitken, attended a summer workshop and brief residency at the site of the Medalta Pottery factory, now a museum in the Medicine Hat Clay Industries heritage district in Alberta. They returned to Ontario brimming with excitement and inspiration and right away began to pool their incredible talents on a small grouping of ceramic collaborations. Kate drew upon her theatre and textile background in devising and drawing intriguing designs onto a few of Thomas’ expertly thrown utilitarian bowls and lidded pots. Everyone who saw these early collaborations, myself included, enthusiastically exclaimed “more, please”. From the lidded crock pot commemorating the Medalta Pottery factory which was a featured ceramic at the Gardiner Museum in “On the Table”, the two month exhibition of 100 Years of Functional Ceramics in Canada early in 2007, to one of Kate and Thomas’ recent joint offerings in The Village Gallery, the “Loki”, one sees the evolution of a most extraordinary collaboration.
Trained in the textile arts, Kate Hyde uses historical themes and references the history of ceramics in her work, particularly the Commedia dell’Arte 18th c. Meissen figures. Kate remarks, “the porcelain clothing is a kind of puzzle: where is the body? The body has vanished, yet its gesture remains and hints about the past.”
Although working in a different medium – bits of found wood, bone, soapstone and resin - Susan Valyi shares Kate Hyde’s fascination with gesture. Susan’s quirky sculptures are all about gesture and body language. That she succeeds in giving these anthropomorphic figures such interesting life is uncanny. The scale of the work is also impressive: Susan’s sculptures can range in size from 20” and 30” high to 50” high. Of her sculptures, Susan says: “Wood suits me. Scavenging suits me. Hard physical labour suits me. My current constructions are joined with resin. I build up shapes like fitting a puzzle together, guided by my sketches. A continuous process of adding, then grinding away. The finished pieces are oiled and sometimes white-washed, then polished to a smooth but textured patina which reveals the underlying mosaic of wood.”
Susan Valyi reports that the idea behind Pygos was to have the two figures swaying together, like in a dance, and touching, but not looking at each other. Their thoughts are elsewhere, not necessarily on each other. A complicated union. “Joined at the Hip” also came to mind as a possible title, the characters tied by bonds of time, love, friendship, circumstance.
Clark Guettel is a recent artist to the gallery. He is well experienced in the art of glass blowing, having operated his own hot glass studio since 1972 after his graduation from Sheridan College School of Crafts and Design. He has given lectures and workshops across Canada and the United States and, in addition to instructing at the Haliburton School of the Arts campus of Sir Sandford Fleming College, assisted in implementing its glass blowing program. Clark believes that the role of the artist or crafts person is to remove the façade and expose the essence of our culture – not necessarily to make people feel good or bad, but to make them feel. Classical shapes and streamlined, sensual forms are the trademarks of Clark Guettel’s hand blown glass and I am very pleased to welcome him to The Village Gallery.
With its move to larger premises, The Village Gallery will be expanding its lines of fine jewellery. Along with Valerie Davidson’s outstanding work with silver, gold and copper, jewellery maker, Heidi den Hartog, has delivered some wonderful sterling rings, bangles and pendants. Tara Marsh’s hand worked glass pendants add some nice colour to the jewellery counter, and the gallery will be soon bringing in other fine hand-crafted jewellery from Canadian makers. Coming soon – mad clockmaker, Roger Wood; painter, Martha Markowsky; fine jewellers, Lisa Ridout and Kim Drosdick. Regards to all, October, 2007:
The Village Gallery is delighted to add stone carver, Ralph Ingleton, to its roster of artists. Ralph has been carving all his life, initially creating decoys from cedar posts on his boyhood farm and later turning his focus to stone carving. Ralph is an intuitive sculptor, the intrinsic beauty of each stone will determine the subject and shape of the finished piece. He relies on simplicity of form to reveal the beauty of the stone.
Ralph's Alabaster carving, "Genius", is an imposing yet unusual piece, indicative of his free-flowing style of carving; it seems to be a cross between Albert Einstein and Pierre Trudeau. Perfect! "Red Salmon" (shown above) is indicative of Ralph's love of nature inspired carvings. His method of "direct carving" is a highly skilled and involved process, which demands not only technical skill, but also imagination and daring. Most of the work is done by hand, and requires considerable time and energy.
Nick Van Bakel is the newest woodturner to join the gallery. He specializes in segmented turning, a very precise and time consuming approach to woodturning. Combinations of different woods are cut into segments, creating many multiple pieces of wood which are sanded to within a thousandth of an inch and glued up into plain and patterned rings. The bowl or vessel is built from the bottom up, one ring at a time. With very careful selection of woods, with lots of hours spent on design and with the goal of precision, the end results are often spectacular. In 2003, Nick spent a number of days in Wyoming, USA, in Curt Theobald's woodturning studio. It is there that Nick received his first training in segmented turning, a form which now takes up much of his time.
I am particularly taken with Nick's work because his designs are simple and he lets the wood tell its own story. Too often segmented wood turned pieces are cluttered or busy, with unnecessary additional decoration. Segmented pieces of wood set side by side, showing beautiful grain and figure, is almost all that one of these turnings require.
Although glass is always with us in our everyday lives, we may not give much thought to it as an art form. When I first saw David Thai's blown glass, I was awestruck. I had never seen such beautiful blown glass. I still haven't found anything that matches the impact of his sleek, yet richly organic, designs. David's works are large scale glass pieces, often measuring from 12" to 24" and even up to 30" high. There's a lot of glass in these pieces, they are heavy and surprisingly stable.
Much of David's work is influenced by Italian master glassblowers, especially their use of intricate cane work. In his Classical series, he draws upon the tried and true shapes of classic Asian vessels. For his Landscape series, he looks to the stars for inspriration and uses textural inclusions and rich Japanese foils to evoke the image of star maps.
David Thai has spent much of the past decade learning and honing his craft, attentively observing what master glassblowers could offer, taking up a residency and teaching at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, apprenticing with Andrew Kuntz (one of Canada's best), passing on some of his knowledge of the craft to a younger generation, and is now settling down to continuing the task of transforming aspects of the world around him into art. He has won numerous awards, most recently Best of Category Decorative Arts at the 2007 Toronto Outdoor Art Show and his work can already be found across Canada and in the United States. I believe that very soon, David will be acknowledged as one of the top artists in his field.
Kate Hyde and Thomas Aitken continue to amaze gallery customers with their outstanding ceramic collaborations. Like Bill Reddick, Thomas has a masterful command of classic shapes which he uses in the creation of his porcelain plates, bowls and vases; Kate's embellishments are both beautiful and literary. As noted in the intro above, their entry, "Harlequin", was selected for the Ontario Craft '07 exhibition to be held throughout November and December at the Ontario Craft Council's gallery on Queen Street West in Toronto.
I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of little porcelain limoge-style coffee and tea cups that Thomas is creating exclusively for The Village Gallery and some of these will bear Kate's inspiring drawings. The few that the gallery was lucky enough to receive earlier in the summer were so popular that Thomas agreed to make more. These should be in the gallery by early November. Jane Wilson's ceramic work is widely admired and while her porcelains are quite functional, they are a feast for the eyes. Her bowls are incredibly thin, like fine bone china and their surfaces are studies in black and white textures. The square plates exhibit striking decoration and Jane's trademark carving which, when studied closely, reveal a very labour intensive process. For example, one square plate reveals an unglazed portion of the plate showing creamy porcelain and it is evident that the charcoal black glaze has painstakingly been removed except within the thin lines of the carved designs on the surface. Then, on another part of the plate, the black glaze has been carved revealing Jane's line designs, the effect being a sort of negative view.
Jim Lorriman's turned stick bowls and reclaimed wood pieces continue to create a buzz in the gallery. One of the selected entries for Ontario Craft '07 is made from wild juniper sticks gathered on the islands of Georgian Bay. The other is a laminated bowl made from hand hewn white oak barn beam dating back to 1850. Earlier in the spring, the Globe and Mail carried a story about how Bill Clinton walked into the Guild Shop in Toronto's Yorkville and amongst other purchases, picked up Jim Lorriman's Lilac Stick Bowl. What a wonderful show of support for Jim. Unfortunately, we sold the Lilac Stick Bowl we had (photo below). We have more stick bowls on hand, in others types of woods.
May & June, 2007: Springing into Summer Kate Hyde: The gallery is delighted to show several small, pen, ink and watercolour paintings by Kate Hyde. These depict colourful and whimsical variations of the popular Harlequin figure of the Commedia dell’arte (modestly priced at $140 to $295).
Bill Reddick: Ceramic collectors need no introduction to Bill's amazing work - he is well known for his beautiful reduction firings using translucent porcelain, including his celadon glazes and the elusive Ming-red glaze which he spent years perfecting. Over the past few years he designed the Maple Leaf Service which was commissioned by the former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and her husband, John Ralston Saul, as the official porcelain service for Rideau Hall. The gallery is carrying a number of Bill's ceramics including a large plate from the Maple Leaf Service. Here are just a few:  BR01 16" dia Plate from Maple Leaf Service $500
Mark Salusbury: Mark's been busy - on our "Artful Table" sit two huge new Fiddleback Maple salad bowls, and we are awaiting the arrival of new woodturnings from Mark's Spring Offering and Gloria series.  MS30 16" x 5½" Fiddleback Maple Bowl $350 (not shown in MS29 13¾" x 5 5/8" $300) Taylor Ledden: Taylor is known for his smooth as silk finishes on his turnings. He puts indigenous woods to great use - lilac, birdseye maple, manitoba maple, black cherry, to name a few. We could almost stage a battle of the bowls - Taylor's beautiful black cherry salad bowl vs Mark's maple salad bowls vs Rick Biggs' cherry salad bowl…  TL01 15" dia Cherry Salad Bowl $325 We also have in some of Taylor Ledden's top quality turned salt and pepper mills:  TL08 12" Black Walnut Pepper Mill $95; TL0 10" Highly Figured Maple Salt Mill and Pepper Mill $80 each Richard Biggs: Rick is mentioned below, but we now have some photos:
Kate Hyde & Thomas Aitken: A new, very large, porcelain pedestal bowl by Thomas Aitken featuring Kate’s drawings of Pierrot, Harlequin and Columbine. This truly outstanding piece is 17” wide with a height of 6”. The outer pedestal portion features a variety of masquerade masks (# KH10 at $295).  Patti Fontaine: By the middle of the 20th Century, abstract painters were using colour to demonstrate that the painting need not be about something but that the paint itself is something. Patti Fontaine’s abstract paintings are all about colour, movement, shape, texture, intensity even. She has an phenomenally intuitive sense about colour and, more often than not, she succeeds in getting it just right. The Village Gallery has two new paintings by Patti. Counterpoint (acrylic on paper, mounted on mat board, framed 21” x 28” $625) is suggestive of her recent use of large, sweeping brushstrokes. Red meets red to block intrusive black, and just a hint of optimistic yellow fixes all the colours firmly on the grey background.  City Reflections (acrylic and pumice texture collage on canvas, unframed 30” x 24” $850) is, I believe, an important piece, perhaps one of Patti’s best. The background is earthly dark, like night, but not black black and is not foreboding, but familiar, almost warming. Streaks of light and ochre evoke the turbulent and animated life of the city and, once again, Patti has revealed just the right measure of red to ground the whole painting. There’s a richness of texture here, with areas of matte colour, other spots shiny and exciting.  Rosslyn Reed: Rosslyn Reed is one of about three ceramists in Ontario (there being but a handful in Canada alone!) who works with crystalline glazes and her works are highly prized for their beauty and rarity. These glazes are among the most elusive of high fire glazes. Like ice crystals on a windowpane, the zinc crystals grow on the surface of each piece in beautiful unpredictable patterns. Rosslyn has been busy all winter producing a variety of crystalline glaze pieces and the gallery has a very nice array of these to choose from (prices range from $25 to $160).  Mark Salusbury: Redesigned Salus Boards in three sizes – durable design with rich figure and strong contrasting colour. Mark has carefully selected, oriented and assembled figured Canadian maple, colourful hardwoods (i.e. red/orange padauk, yellow pau amarello, purpleheart) and veneers, to produce a board that is visually pleasing for your dining and entertaining (see December photos of these below). Also in, new to the gallery, Mark’s sleek, modern salad servers in walnut, cherry and maple ($42/pr). Suzanne Woods: The gallery welcomes a new ceramic artist, Suzanne Woods. Suzanne produces functional white stoneware in subtle shades and wonderful textures. On hand are bowls of several sizes, quiche pans, oval casserole, open casserole and covered casseroles. ($35 to $80)  Richard Biggs: Also new to the gallery, Richard Biggs is another great Ontario woodturner and I’m delighted he has agreed to join us. Rick uses a nice variety of intriguing woods such as box elder, birch, cherry, ash, chestnut as well as maple, oak and walnut. He has made use of stains, dyes and texture for unusual effect and happily exploits spalting when he finds it! On hand in the gallery are his hollow vessels, bowls and candle sticks. Coming soon:
Have a great spring. March 1 to April 23, 2007: Turning Wood Into Art Fine woodturnings by Mark Salusbury, from the large 15” dia “Porringer for Salus” and even larger 22” dia “Centurion II” to his fiddleback maple Earth Bowls. The Village Gallery welcomes new woodturner in the gallery, Jim Lorriman, with his segmented Stick Bowls using Lilac and Staghorn Sumac, as well as the Dockwood Bowls that Jim turns using the concentric ring lamination process. New hollow burl vessels by Vince Way-Nee. Additional turnings by Bill Usher and wooden boxes by Murray Finn. Mark Salusbury
“Porringer” bowl is made from a luscious dark, maple, burl; it has an inlaid gilded walnut centre and gilded peppercorns placed in a few spots add a subtle little visual treat. The outside wall has a thin line of gilded beading. Porringer, like all of Mark’s works, is numbered and recorded for authenticity.
“Centurion II” is impressive for its large size (22” diameter) and is remarkable because of the range of figuring on its surface, from subtle striations to rich and tightly clustered burl.
“Glistening Days” is a delightful piece: it contains a deep cavity below the surface face and because it is turned to a rounded point without flat bottom, it gleefully bobs in roly poly fashion on a table top, much like Mark’s “Earth Bowls”. Gilders paste is embossed in the oak grains of the face and irregularly spaced circles of brass inlay glisten as the piece lightly dances when touched. Jim Lorriman Jim believes that his most important mission is to reveal the qualities and characteristics of wood. If the wood has a split in it, a disfigurement or an unusual colour, he will emphasize these characteristics. He has found that spalted maple makes stunning platters and for bowls there is nothing quite like birdseye maple. Jim is well known for his spectacular segmented stick bowls made of lilac, sumac and grapevine. Of these, Jim says “Lilac is in a class of its own but sometimes has to share the limelight with grapevine, red pine and balsam poplar.
A significant feature of Jim Lorriman’s work is the use of reclaimed wood, giving new life to old, historical or sentimental pieces of wood. Using the concentric ring lamination process, he has made bowls, vases and platters from doors and window frames, docks, flooring, stair railings, joists, decks, cottages. Sometimes he has access to wood beams from buildings that were built 100 to 150 years ago from wood cut from trees that may have been more than 200 years old. These evoke a sense of wonder – one imagines the dark, quiet forests where these trees were mere seedlings.
Vince Way Nee
This one is a crowd pleaser – wonderful proportions, beautifully shaped, takes full advantage of the natural edge of the walnut and the variety of colour
Great combination of pleasing shape, subtlty of burl and contrast with the darker embuia rim Murray Finn
Stunning jewellery box (with removable inner shelf)
Here, Murray has taken full advantage of the intriguing nature of wood. In this box on stilts, he has used “wormy” elm, which, with the use of the natural edge of the elm, creates a visually interesting box. About WoodturningThe earliest reliable evidence of wood turning dates to 700 BC. The Roman occupation of England left behind a thousand year tradition in the daily use of wooden bowls and plates at the kitchen table. These were made with the use of pole lathes, utilized right into the 20th Century for turning large, heavy objects. The treadle lathe was an improvement for lightweight and delicate work where high speed and continual rotation was an advantage. Even today, where modern technology is widely used, occasionally woodturners will rely on older techniques to achieve a particular object. Around the middle of the 20th century, woodturning experienced a Renaissance, having evolved from a functional craft to one of the most popular, most sophisticated, craft art forms today. Craft historians credit woodturners like James Prestini and Bob Stocksdale with bringing originality and innovation to the craft, both of them exploring the expressive qualities of wood. From that point on, woodturners entered into a dialogue with wood, taking stock of grain, texture, colour, and of the ways in which they could unearth the treasures within. The artist weighs the point at which the technology of the lathe must give way to the inherent beauty of the wood. In fact, some say that the lathe can offer up too much perfection, too much symmetry – imperfection is a symptom of life, of nature’s wonder, of dynamism – whereas mathematical exactitude can produce sterility. It is precisely because wood is a living thing, an irregular, sometimes immensely flawed material, as in the case of burls and spalted woods, that woodturners adore their medium and endeavour to exploit the unpredictability of wood. A work of art is hidden inside a chunk of wood. In the words of legendary woodturner, Ed Moulthrop, "The wood you see is the wood exactly as it was created. I simply uncover it and there it is!" Woodturners have widely explored the limits of wood. Some artists will retain the natural state of wood while others will paint it, lacquer it, add an array of other materials to it, some will coax impossible shapes from wood, some will create texture in the wood, some will finish it finely, others roughly, some will create conservative, controlled, little gems in the more predictable woods, others will look for defects, splits, spalting, bark inclusions to produce unique forms, some will produce tried and true shapes, others will yield to wild abandon in a quest to awaken the sensuousness of wood. Usually wood is turned when the wood is fully cured. Sometimes, for large pieces, it will be partially turned and left to cure, then picked up again for final turning, which tends to produce the most predictable results. Yet some woodturners seek the element of surprise by turning a still green piece of wood and leaving it to cure – as it shrinks and dries, the shape will change in wonderful ways. Certain chance offerings in trees are highly prized by woodturners – burls, spalting and irregular colouring. Although not a common occurrence on trees, burls are wart-like protuberances that can develop anywhere on the tree. Burls are amongst the most beautiful figuring that can be found in wood and are widely sought after. Spalting is caused by a bacteria in the wood and can leave distinct dark markings in the wood which, when turned, is visually dynamic and has recently become very popular with woodworkers and collectors alike. Certain woods, like the lowly Manitoba Maple found right here in southeastern Ontario, can exhibit surprisingly dramatic ribbons of colour, some of it resembling streaks of blood. Indeed, worms in a tree can leave behind hollow trails which the artist turns to advantage. Sometimes the uninitiated will ask “can I drink from that wooden goblet” or “can I put fruit in that turned bowl” or “can I put flowers in that vase”? It is with pleasure that we can point out that the piece is a work of art, to be enjoyed for its own sake. In fact, Mark Lindquist, an extremely creative and innovative woodturner, has said of a spalted bowl: "Its function is to display the beauty of nature and to reflect the harmony of man. It is wrong to ask the spalted bowl to function as a workhorse as well, to hold potato chips, or salad or to store trivialities. The bowl is already full. It contains itself and the space between the walls." [ Top of Page ]
January - February 2007: Thomas Aitken and Kate Hyde Thomas and Kate - each one a talented and renowned ceramic artist - have joined forces to create exceptional collaborative works of art. Thomas is producing very large, one of a kind, porcelain platters and bowls onto which Kate has cleverly drawn figures and text. Some of these include the Harlequin, Pierrot and Columbine characters of the Commedia dell’arte that Kate also uses in her ceramic sculptures, some reference historical, Shakespearean and other literary themes and still others combine elements from all of these.
Thomas’ 17” diameter platter called “All the World’s a Stage” features Kate’s drawings of the Harlequin and Pierrot figures and appears in the series of photos on our web site home page.
The most stunning result of their collaborations thus far is the “Delight in Disorder” series – a 16” diameter pedestal platter, a 16” diameter serving platter, and a footed bowl 14 ½” dia x 6 ½” height. Kate has drawn the full text of the 17th poem by Robert Herrick, Delight in Disorder, on each of these wonderful pieces.
The pedestal platter features just the sort of 17th century dress that Herrick finds so tantalizing on the female form. Kate has drawn the text of the entire poem onto the platter and even cleverly incorporated some text into the dress’ decoration. The serving platter contains a 17th century form of woman’s dress and the words of the poem are beautifully drawn around the walls of the platter. The exquisite drawing in the serving bowl illustrates a masked Columbine as well as the text of the poem.
Here is the text of Delight in Disorder: A sweet disorder in the dress
While this talented duo have produced other decorative works, including serving bowls and vases decorated with a variety of theatrical costumes and classical flora, it is the artworks depicting the commedia dell’arte and literary themes that are eliciting an overwhelming buzz with our clientele. The Thomas Aitken and Kate Hyde collaborative works are truly one of a kind art treasures!
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December 2006: Mark Salusbury One of Canada’s top wood turners, Mark Salusbury, has just provided our gallery with a selection of what he calls “Salus Boards”
These have been created for years of use and enjoyment featuring striking, durable design with rich figure and strong contrasting colour. Mark has carefully selected, oriented and assembled figured Canadian maple, colourful hardwoods (i.e. red/orange padauk, yellow pau amarello, purpleheart) and veneers, to produce a board that is visually pleasing, satisfying to the touch and appropriately sized.
These are easy to ship and transport. Consider several sizes for yourself or for your gift giving.
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