Beauty

aquatic arts

October 17, 2024

One of my favourite pastimes is watching the swimmers from the bleachers at UofT’s Olympic sized pool. It’s like being at the theatre. Better yet, The Royal Ballet. There’s always that one swimmer that stands out, that moves with the grace of a swan. It’s the repetition that I find so mesmerizing. And the speed. And the effortlessness, as though water is her natural habitat. It’s when two swimmers move in tandem, like a choreographed dance that I am most amazed. Stroke on stroke, breath on breath; two perfectly synced flip turns. I leave feeling a small bit awestruck by what the human body can do.

eyes wide open

October 15, 2024

When you’re a walker you get to know your routes like they’re your friends. There’s the one with the massive pre-historic rocks. And the one with immaculate lawns and a mid-century modern bench. There’s the one where the wild flowers grow. The one where the old, aproned lady stares out from her window. And the one with ever changing graffiti. I know these routes, and I know them well. I pay attention to what they have to show me. A sinuous crack in the pavement; bikes chained to wrought iron; a choir of anemones in full bloom. It’s the walker’s eye. Trained to pay attention. William Eggleston has devoted his life’s work to shooting everyday street scenes and to finding beauty in the mundane. “Perfectly banal, perhaps. Perfectly boring, certainly,” wrote the New York Times in 1976 after Eggleston’s first big exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Today, he’s widely considered the grandfather of street photography. His quiet, ordinary Kansas streets, shot in the late 70s and 80s, are not unlike the ones we walk today. Concrete, brick, trees and wire.

weird world

October 1, 2024

Maryam Riazi’s sculptural vessels looks like weird little creatures, monsters even. Imagine planters with spikes like dead man’s fingers. Or a six legged bowl. I see beaks and tails and protruding bellies. I like how pops of colour — yellow, turquoise, dusty rose –– weave their way into an otherwise earthy palette. Riazi grew up in the city of Shiraz surrounded by lush, verdant gardens filled with orange trees and blossoming flowers. Nature is a constant source of inspiration. Her work is beautiful and weird and otherworldly.

seaworthy

September 12, 2024

Noriko Kuresumi’s ceramic sculptures remind me of breaking waves. Makes sense given the artist’s fascination with the ocean and sea life. I also see ruffled fabric and spilt milk. “Don’t cry over it,” my Mum used to say. Spilt Milk, that is. Move forward. I find Kuresemi’s work vital and exquisite. She works in porcelain –– translucent and strong –– and she’s never taken a sculpture class in her life. Wow.

Paula

August 9, 2024

A few weeks ago, I brought home a piece of pottery from an artist whose work I’ve long admired. it’s a little blob of a chalice with rough edges and a gloopy glaze that makes it look like it was sculpted from melted marshmallow. “I’m a sloppy potter,” Paula said as I tuned over the vase to reveal an unfinished join and moon face base. “My work lacks integrity,” she added in a way that made zero apology for her lumpy rim and lopsided base. For someone who works painstakingly to smooth her joins, lumps and bumps, Paula’s attitude both inspires and infuriates me. My nine-year-old daughter brings home more polished work. And there it is. The child. That’s what I see. That’s what I am drawn to in Paula Grief‘s work and what I connect to in most art I like. A childlike sense of play and freedom and imagination. Clean joins and finished edges mean nothing in the absence of these key elements. Not caring about what other people think is the game changer. Paula doesn’t give a toss about appealing to a wide audience. “I make things that I think my friends will like.” Sounds like creative integrity to me.

twiggy

June 13, 2024

Our home is littered with things that were once one thing and then became another; a giant school ruler that became a shelf, a metal lamp shade that became a fruit bowl, a banged up old bicycle wheel that an artist friend turned into a wall hanging that resembles a bus. I love this idea that a person, and a thing can have many incarnations. (I hope to come back as a blade of grass.) British artist, Chris Kenny works with common place materials and turns them into poignant, and often humorous works of art. His twig series is so brilliant and weird. Tiny, delicate twigs re-imagined as stick figures dancing, stretching, jumping, pulling. There’s so much humour and pathos packed into each one.

knock on wood

March 2, 2024

Aleph Geddis’ wood sculptures look like they landed from another planet. They have an alien quality to them. He grew up on Orcas Island in the Pacific Northwest with a parent who sculpted, carved and built boats from wood. There’s a kind of osmosis that takes place when it’s all around you like that. Sacred Geometery is central to his practice. “Sacred Geometry is no randomness. Everything relates to everything else. There’s something magical about these shapes, and creating these shapes, and studying the way they all interact with each other that just really grabbed me.” Wood. Stone. Carving is a beautiful art. Chipping and whittling away at something, until you’ve revealed its (your) essence.

pezzettino

January 9, 2024

In Pieces But Still Holding It Together sounds like an apt description of most people I know. In fact, the longer I’m here, the more I realize that we’re all a bit shredded up inside. What I love about Bouke de Vries‘ ceramic sculptures is how all the shattered pieces find a home within one beautiful, translucent vessel. Because that’s what we all are, walking vessels, custodians of all our little pieces.

past present

December 27, 2023

It’s a beautiful idea to take relics from different cultures and time periods and re-imagine them as contemporary sculptures. French artist, Nicolas Lefebvre does exactly this. A background in antiques informs his work. As does his extensive travel. Imagine an antique Amazonian headdress and Nigerian coins, or a Khmer mirror and a Berber tent peg. Each one of his “objets montés” are a delicate balance of colour, texture and scale. As is often the case with collections such as these, choosing just one is impossible. I want them all.

the constant gardener

December 21, 2023

“The things I did were the things I wanted to do…. so little by little, it became what it is,” says the German-born artist and landscape designer, Robert Jakob of his garden in Springs, NY. Irises, foxgloves, peonies, roses, geraniums, forget-me-nots and lavender all grow in his garden and inspire his paintings. There’s a sense of urgency to his flowers; immediate, fleeting, intense. “One tends to want to be in control, if you make a painting or a drawing,” he says. “Yet things happen that you don’t plan for—they just sneak in. But you can erase them, fix them, paint over them. In nature it’s different, because things never stand still and you can’t do anything about them.”

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