FLUX in FLUX

Spring is here and though it would be nice if it were warmer the cold reminds me that there are a few school related things left on the good ol "to-do list" which need to be checked off. The most exciting of which is setting up for FLUX in FLUX the thesis group show which will be happening all day today and tomorrow (featuring painting, drawing and sculpture students work). I must say the organization and cooperation of everyone is great to see and there is a large variety of work. It should make for a great opening tomorrow night (7-10pm) at Aceartinc 290 McDermot Ave in the exchange. Here is a handy map if you are not exchange district familiar.

There will be beer and snacks at the opening tomorrow night as well as all of the artists if you want to chat about the work. If you can't make it out tomorrow night the gallery is open to the public from 12-5 Tuesday to Saturday and the show will be up until April 30th (admission is free). I hope your spring is wonderful!

-Julie

one week

one week to have this cleaned up, set up, and ready for open house/ final crits.

tonight though i will be heading to Stellas on osborne to hang photos, which will be up for all of april! all of the photos will be from my ongoing series of collaged winnipeg images.

next week i will be only speaking spanish in preparation for my spanish finals, i have a feeling this could get increasingly annoying for my friends and family. apologies.

one week left of classes left for my degree, i never thought this would happen, i feel so old.

as far as arty stuff goes in the next little bit my schedule is;

april 2nd - "Trantions" Photography at Gallery Ingenue (Stellas on Osborne)

april 5th - style your sole event at U of M; i will be painting shoes (from 11:30-1:30) in university centre; in support of TOMS and 1 day without shoes [more info here]

april 10th - fine arts open house (U of M campus), noon-five

- painting featured in gallery 111

- studio space in the artbarn (upstairs #227)

april 16th - "Flux in Flux" (Thesis Students Group Exhibit at Aceart), opening saturday seven-ten

so if you are out & about in wpg in april checkout some art, it makes you cooler :)

-Julie

march; blink and you'll miss it

The opening for Temporary Spaces went soooo well, thank you to everyone who checked it out throughout the week. The comments in the book were overwhelmingly positive and very encouraging so thank you. It was fun to go check on my paintings everyday and try and eavesdrop on what people were saying, catch up on the new comments and go on with my day wondering campus.

[the above two photos courtesy of miss brittany mahood visit her photogblog here]

So post-show it was back to real life with a pile of not-so-fun papers to write, which I am happy to say are FINISHED! Its sinking in that I have less than 3 weeks of classes left. Last minute paintings to finish and running around to do, all very exciting. I'm happy to say that I am back in the studio, working on that final push before final crits. This was my morning :)

And as schedules lining up have it, I happen to have an art gallery date with my mom this evening, looking at art will always remain one of my favourite things. So the moral of the story is; breath in, breath out, life is good.

happy march everyone; heres hoping it warms up soon.

-Julie

temporary spaces

Well in true March form I have spent the past week buried in assignments and fighting off a nasty cold. But nevertheless it has been a busy great week. Despite the sickness and snowstorm, my sister and I went out to Stellas on Osborne for the opening of Canadiana - a group show full of wonderful pieces that especially speak to the sensibilities of us northerners. Two of my photo collages are among the bunch. For more about the work in this show [click here].

And tonight at 7pm is the opening of my show Temporary Spaces at GoSA (Gallery of Student Art) at the U of M, featuring paintings from this past year of thesis work. Very exciting stuff, there will be snacks and you are more than welcome to stop by. If you can't make it out tonight the show will be up for the rest of the week gallery hours are 9am-4pm

Monday to Friday.

My thesis this year has been in a way a reflection of my time spent in Haiti. For the past couple of years I have been making paintings about time, memory and dreams. Kind of dreamy landscapes varying in degrees of abstraction. My time being away impacted how I make work in that I had all of these new places in my head, new memories. I feel really good about my work at this point in the year, and I think I have stumbled upon some really interesting pieces.

In other news am getting very close to the end of the school year and I am very excited to finish, just over a month and I will have my degree. This is both great and scary as I'm not really sure what I am going to do afterwards. But I'm sure I'll figure it out as I go along.

-Julie

back in the swing

Well after a year or so of an unplanned hiatus from the art world (between academic classes and not being in the country not much art was made) I'm somewhat back. It was a great time setting up the TOMS group show at GoSA on Sunday night.

Yes that would be me with a level, feeling semi-official, I think everything was fairly straight. Group shows are a fun dynamic, and I must say everyone had a great attitude and excitement about the show. Which makes for a great hanging. The food from degrees didn't hurt either (my favourite place on campus to eat).

Some of the beautiful shoes being featured in exhibit, which runs until this Friday March 4th at GoSA (Gallery of Student Art in University Centre at U of Manitoba).

Oh and the new issue of Chesterfield Magazine came out this week and a photo of mine from Nicaragua was inside, nothing like black and white film photography to brighten my day.

Here is to a productive week!

-Julie

february means studying, freezing and thank GOD some painting

So it is officially February, aka school mid-term explosion. Despite that I have been getting to the studio I feel like even more often than I was last term. Though that could be because I have my thesis review on Thursday this week (as a part of the mid-term fun). I am actually quite excited to get some feedback form my profs, as I have been branching out and doing some different things this year.

Some finished and not so finished things in my space as of today.

Also very exciting stuff my shoes are here! Now I have to make the final design choices and get them back for their exhibit by the 18th, its a good thing I am a girl who likes a deadline because I sure do have a lot of them in the next few weeks. I am very excited to be a part of this upcoming show.
This is a section of my BIG painting I've been working on, I have a love-hate thing going on with it right now. Working big has always been very challenging for me but I think once I get past all the scary-ness its going to be worth it. My work has been transitioning to be more about temporary spaces lately and how temporary often means ignored. I am beyond excited for my upcoming solo show in GoSA (Gallery of Student Art) in University Centre March 14th and I hope to complete this big monster of a painting long before then.

I will be studying my butt off in the mean time,

-Julie

new year, new work

So I've been decently hard at work once again, with classes and painting and freezing my tush off taking picture outside... All of which are thing I like to do but nevertheless need a push to get going on. Since I am graduating in May I have really been focusing on trying to get the most out of this last little bit of my life that I will be in school for. Before I know it, it will all be over. Both a good and scary thing. So here are a few things I have been working on so far in 2011...

a recent photo collage

my latest painting... my work seems to be getting more abstract

Hopefully I will be able to maintain my good studio work habits well into this new year, and not get overly bogged down with my academic classes. I think I will be able to manage it all and let my academics just serve as research for my paintings.

Oh my beautiful mess of a studio. If you need me ever, this is hopefully where I will be. I'm really going to try and not get caught up in perfection this term, and just paint, "let it flow" if you will... I tend to get in my own way a lot. But have been flooded with ideas lately and am excited to translate that onto a canvas. Exciting stuff.

Thats all for now,

-Julie

thought process...

When I was a child I was very odd. But you know, lots of kids are funny, if you spend time around kids you know what I mean, I mean that in the most positive way possible. I wore rainbow fluorescent tie-dye outfits, didn't brush my hair, was super painfully shy in social situations and wanted to be frankenstein when I grew up (that was until my wise brother told me I would have to have bolts in my head; so I chose to be an astronaut instead).

But anyways this all has a point I think...

thats me in the middle

So anyways my work this year has to do with destiny and dreams. It gets me thinking a lot about how different events in your life alter those original plans and dreams. Also though how you can be in something that makes no sense what so ever at the time but look back on it and have moments of major clarity. For as long as I can remember I have had an odd fascination with tarps. Yes those blue, orange, yellow whatever colour bright plastic things that cover construction sites in the winter. When I was little they looked magical to me. They made me want to go play in there. A few years ago I decided to re-visit this fascination after seeing a large balloon shaped tarp on a power line by my home.

This launched into a photography project that brought up issues of time, change, transformation, whimsy and the way I see the world. I love the photo collages that I created in 2009 and this year when applying for a show I dug up those images to send along with my application. All of a sudden my brain just click click clicked all together. Here I was painting these children in their dream spaces... while their cities have turned into tent cities. They were essentially living my childish naive dream of living and being under a tarp, with some very real very difficult realities.

While in Haiti this past May I myself slept under a "Samaritans Purse" tarp in a pastors yard in Port au Prince. All of this led me to turn my studio space into a kind of gallery under a tarp, the blue light is both comforting and limiting. I feel like this idea and how to incorporate it still needs a lot of developing. But its so odd how these things come together, it both makes me smile and makes me feel on track.

I guess I'll see what it turns into.

-Julie

school... the countdown begins...

my little corner of the world :)

SO its November 17th and the last day of classes is December 8th... so the end is in sight (and by end I mean a temporary break). It feels like I have a million things to do before that happens but I'm sure in true Julie fashion I will just stay up until 2 the day before they are all due. BUT the good news is my thesis work has been progressing (however slowly) but progressing none the less. Below is my currently messy studio...

As I may have mentioned all of my work this year (so far) has been about my time spent in Haiti. This causes me to get side tracked easily while looking for just the right source image, browsing through my photos (and team mates photos) I can easily get lost for an hour or two.

Excuses excuses I know but thats what I've been dealing with for the last while.

Who wouldn't get distracted by this cuteness though!? All of the memories come flooding back, which in a way help me paint with more clarity. So who can really be upset about that. I just hope that I am able to begin to work more quickly and am able to balance all of my stuff a little bit better next term.

Anyways thats all for now as I really should be painting...

-Julie

family time

So for a long time I've been making art and photographs about the importance of family... but just to be clear I probably have a different notion of family than most people do. I'm talking about your support system, whether that group or person actually has any blood relation to you isn't the point for me.

I find the difference between siblings raised in the same circumstances fascinating, all of that birth order stuff, and just the specific gifts and destinies of each individual. I think that will always shine through and survive any rough patches, because at the end of the day you are who you are. Who you were created to be.
That brings me back to the whole "what do you consider family" thing; now for me lets be honest it has just a little bit to do with food. Once you feed me, I'll never leave. I'm like a stray that way. But just the ability to sit down and enjoy a meal and each others company is a huge deal for me.
I am very blessed in that I have a pretty great support system around me made up of many different families, friends and my real life immediate family. Though it not always roses at home, they still support me in what I want to do with my life, which for many art school kids is kind of a family deal breaker. I live at home rent free while I spend all my money and time painting, taking photos, and working at starbucks to make tuition. Its not the worst deal in the world.

I'm still figuring this all out in how it fits into my work this year, but its still a central focus for me. It all comes back to the value and purpose of each person, and how some kind of support is almost always necessary for that full potential to be reached.

So just a big THANK YOU to anyone who has ever fed me, liked a painting, or just given me encouragement and support.

Thesis Work

Some recent stuff I've been working on...

So I've been on this importance of value and destiny one track mind so to speak for months now. My paintings naturally are a reflection of that. I've been using my photos from my time in a Haitian refugee camp as sources and have been placing the figures in dream-like spaces. This is all in an attempt to create the figures "head space" as their surrounding. This thesis year will be my last year of school in my fine arts honours degree and it has been challenging to continue to be motivated with very little supervision. I'm on track with my goal though to have 5 paintings completed by my winter critique in early December.