The Art Collective

The Art Collective extends a warm welcome to five new members who have made substantial contributions to our collaborative art making work this fall. One of the five, Monica Eckert, also was an active participant at several of the collective's interactive events in the fall of 2004 and the winter/spring months of 2005, including our Art Matters drawing event at Universite du Quebec a Montreal's Cafe des arts.

We meet every Friday from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in painting studio VA-315, in the Visual Arts building at the corner of Rene-Levesque Blvd. and Crescent St. in downtown Montreal. The sessions are open to Fine Arts students, alumni and professional artists. Please feel free to drop by. For more information, please contact the collective's co-ordinator, Robert Winters, at: robertwinters@videotron.ca

Posted by Robert W at 08:17 PM | Permalink

Monica is a third-year Studio Arts student who works with drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics and mixed media. She enjoys working spontaneously, watercolour painting and making large sculptures using paper mache. She is interested in art therapy.

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Shawn is a third-year student in the Studio Arts program at Concordia University.
Shawn's work can be viewed at:
Shawn's site

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Joanna, who is studying Studio Arts, says her recent work has been about bringing balance to life. "My head space is a hot little pocket where I keep my identity wrapped in pretty things and livid grotesques," Joanna says.

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Khadija is a final-year student in the Painting and Drawing program at Concordia University. In describing her work, Khadija says she focuses on women's issues, which she uses as a metaphor for her point of view. "The history of my nation and not having a voice or space in the world" are her central themes. Khadija wants her work to engage viewers "and tell them stories about myself as a woman and as a Kurdish person." The women's issue and the Kurdish one are linked by "the problem of not having enough space in the world," she says. Khadija has also illustrated children's books and done book covers.
You can view some of Khadija's earlier work at:
Khadija's work

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Cassandra Witteman's artistic preoccupations include magical systems and symbols of the movement of energy (chakras). Cassandra likes to make magical objects such as tarot cards, scrying mirrors, masks etc. Other artistic preoccupations include the dichotomy between freedom and bondage, and "the inside and outside existing simulataneously." Cassandra, who has just completed two years of theatre training in Toronto, said she is also interested in relationships between practical construction and artistic conception. In terms of materials, she is interested in weaving and textiles as a mode of artistic expression.

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We submitted our proposal for the VAV Gallery show we are applying for, with our interactive event co-sponsored by the Painting and Drawing Association. If we are accepted, show is week of Nov. 6, with opening evening of Nov. 8. We also made the deadline for our funding request for the Fine Arts Student Alliance; we are asking for $500 for materials for our sessions and for interactive sessions.
Amelie Labreche's excellent short film about our McGill event is posted on our website now, in a low resolution version. It is, of course, even better in its original high-res version, which we will present at our next show. Congratulations, Amelie!
Our session last week was very productive and several excellent pieces were done. Bea Parsons, who is in her second year as a member of The Art Collective, brought in a painting she is working on and Khadija C. Baker, a new member, showed us a painting she recently completed. David King started a fascinating drawing called Twins, which you can see in the Our Work section of our site, that was also worked on by new member Joanna Nawracaj and Cassandra Witteman, who was attending her first session.

Collective member Jarmila Kavena suggests we encourage people to submit work for the art loan program, through which work can be shown at Concordia University in offices and public spaces. Jarmila says much of the work shown in this way is eventually bought by people who become attached to the works of art.
More information is at this web page:
http://alumni.concordia.ca/cuaa/chapters/fine_arts/submissions2005.shtml

Our photo and image gallery is back up and linked to our main web home page. The site’s improving new look and speed are a credit to the skills of our webmaster, Robert Turenne, who won a Russell Mills purchase prize for a piece that combines digital images and painting. Several new photos and images have been posted in the Photos and Our Work sections of the gallery.

Our galleries:
http://gallery.theartcollective.net
home page:
www.theartcollective.net

Hot bagels, coffee and juice etc. kept the session going until 230, as the pieces kept evolving and the discussion of various topics and the work we were doing kept our energy levels high. Watch the website for several more new pieces to be posted in the days to come.

Robert Winters

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Take a look at our galleries: http://gallery.theartcollective.net

You will find a collection of works from various events and a collection of photos taken at these events.

Posted by Robert T at 05:35 PM | Permalink

We welcomed a new artist member last week, Joanna Nawracaj, a studio arts student who decided to join after looking at work on our website and finding the images were surprisingly coherent for collaborative work.

Our session included work on the topic of “shocking” among other themes. This theme included a piece begun by Kyla Chevrier, a second year studio arts student who dropped by to work on an unusual piece that was also worked on by collective veteran David King and new member Shawn Kuruneru, a 3rd year studio arts student with a flair for drawing in a unique style.
Shawn has a website you can visit to see his work:
shawnkuruneru.tripod.com

Another collective veteran from last year, Bea Parsons, added her strong touch to some work and told us about her experiences teaching students, which is part of her art education program.

Our gallery of art work and photos is back up, thanks to hard work of our webmaster, Robert Turenne, and Robert Winters will be doing an update of content in next couple of days with new work and fresh photos from this year’s sessions:
http://gallery.theartcollective.net

We're meeting each Friday, 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., in room 315 of the Visual Arts Building, at the corner of Crescent and Rene-Levesque in downtown Montreal. Drop by for coffee, a fresh bagel or juice, and some collaborative drawing.

I submitted our request for $500 in funding from the Fine Arts Student Alliance by the deadline on Thursday. We received $500 last year from FASA, which helped us with materials. VAV proposal to be submitted by Monday, including images. The painting and drawing association has agreed to co-sponsor our collaborative art making proposal for the VAV show which starts week of Nov. 6, opening is evening of Nov. 8. They will contribute some money for materials for the event, and also will encourage members to join in.

Painting and drawing association has show opening Friday Oct. 21, 6 p.m., Espace 306 in Belgo building.

Artist François Morelli, who helps advise the collective, has a show opening at esthesio gallery in Quebec City on Saturday Oct. 21, if you feel like an outing on the weekend.
http://www.esthesio.com/index.htm

With the Van Gogh drawing show opening Oct. 18 at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, you can listen to an audio file from the Met in which actor Kevin Bacon reads excerpts from Van Gogh’s letters; 600 of them survive, as well as the 1,100 drawings he did in the only 10 years that he lived after he took up drawing.

http://www.metmuseum.org/vvg/

The Met Van Gogh website section also has a rather unusually easy to use page where you can draw yourself using a variety of pen sizes.

http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/van_gogh/menu.html

It’s part of the surprisingly well done Van Gogh for kids section:
http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/van_gogh/intro.html

That’s all for now

Robert Winters

Posted by Robert W at 12:02 AM | Permalink

We've moved to a new server. THe look and feel will be adjusted soon, but for now, the 'Corporate Blue' is how it is.

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