Local colour map of the Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
Pigment in glair binder on paper with pencil and ink; 24″/61cm x 38.5″/98cm; 2013.
Local Colour Map: Kitchener
Symeon
Local Colour Map: Eldorado
Local colour map of the Eldorado, Ontario, Canada.
Pigment in glair binder on paper with pencil and ink; 24″/61cm x 38.5″/98cm; 2013.
New Local Colour Map Underway
I’m busy at work today exploring the local colours of Eldorado, Ontario. This is a place that I’ve visited many times over the years and I love the colour that comes from this location. Over the past few days, I’ve managed to take the natural ochre from this community and subject it to temperatures ranging … Read more
Local Colour Map: Porte de l'Enfer
Local colour map of the Porte de l’Enfer, Ontario, Canada.
Pigment in glair binder on paper with pencil and ink; 24″/61cm x 38.5″/98cm; 2013.
True Blue
Before leaving San Diego, I had the chance to attend the True Blue exhibition currently happening at the MinGei Gallery in Balboa Park! The show explores the colour blue by categorizing works into four materials: Indigo, Turquoise, Cobalt and Lapis Lazuli. The pieces on display are all beautiful, functional, and mostly from anonymous sources, which … Read more
The Sunset Cliffs
Yesterday I walked to visit the Sunset Cliffs … here’s a place that’s already a paint palette! The diversity of colours is amazing! I collected a couple of rocks while walking along the cliff and the beach … I think I’ll make an atlas map when I get home.
Making paint with the Luiseño People
Yesterday, I had an amazing opportunity to paint with a group of Luiseño children on the La Jolla Reservation north of San Diego. For over a decade, Dr. Norrie Robbins has been running the Science Explorers Club at reservations around San Diego with the express purpose of nourishing a love of the outdoors and sharing values that protect … Read more
Local-colour spidergram installation
I’m very excited to share that my local-colour spidergram installation has been recently finished! All of my local-colour spidergrams—whether on paper or on walls—are about exploring a place through its colours. As a visual artist, this has proven to be a great adventure for me and for the communities with which I’ve worked.
This installation originates from earth collected in the town of Eldorado, Ontario in Canada and measures 5.5 metres (18 feet) wide by 3 metres (10 feet) high. At its base is a square monolith of that place and from that radiates a host of drawn lines. A flourish at the conclusion of each line indicates whether the colour is the result of levitation, grinding, or heating; with the length of each indicating the time spend on that particular process. Each line invites the viewer to follow one of many small experiments toward its colourful conclusion—which is encased in glass and bordered with silk and brass—amid the larger collection to which it belongs.
If you find yourself in or around my studio over the next month, I invite you to come and enjoy the work for yourself.
Woad Harvest
It was a wonderfully blue weekend (not emotionally, or musically, but colour-wise!). Autumn has suddenly arrived here in Conestoga and with it the possibility of a frost that would ruin my crop of woad. With cold nights predicted in the new week, I decided it was time to harvest.
Saint-Malo’s Field
I never knew that there were places in Canada where one could stand and be surrounded by a rainbow of brightly coloured earth—ochres and umbers creating every imaginable shade of yellow, red, and brown. But, I’ve discovered that Saint-Malo, in Quebec, is one such place …In researching possible places to explore for local-colour pigments on … Read more