Cabinet of Queeriosities 3 (2015)

The third Cabinet of Queeriosities that I've facilitated.

Arhea Robinson

Barely There, or Piles, 2015

thread on canvas

Heather MacDonald-Sorochan

Two-Spirited, 2015

clay

Lisa Lunn

For MJ, Bowie, my Barbies and my Ponies, but especially 4U, Prince, 2015

assemblage of found and altered objects

Trudi Sissons

Duplicity, 2015

mixed media collage

Trudi Sissons

EX-HIBIT, 2015

digital image

Klaus Pinter

Untitled, 2015

digital prints

Kasia Sosnowski

Close/Closed, 2014

plaster, condoms

Darcy Forrest

St. Christopher, 2015

oil paint, photographs, gold leaf, and kunzite on wood panel

Kiley Granberg

Bird of a Feather – Sheller’s Jay, 2015

gouache, gold leaf, collage, frame

Cindy Baker

Poop Sprinkles, 2015

glass, ceramic jar, gelatin capsules, glitter

Jennifer Davis

Fruitcake, 2015

fruitcake, glitter, and cake board

Rick Gillis

Lesbane, 2015

assemblage

Amanda Bigford

Hanky Panky, 2015

digital image 

G. Wayne Dwornik

Project: SOS, 2015

digital image

Len Komanac

Secret Hearts, 2015

acrylic on board

Giselle Peters

Flora, 2015

ceramic and fabric

Giselle Peters

Vase Form, 2015

ceramic and fabric

Giselle Peters

Skirted Vessel, 2015

ceramic and fabric

Frater Tham

“When We Care What Others Think We Lose Sight of Wonder,

When We Care What Others Do, We Miss the Mysterious,”

whispered the fairies. 2015

faux vintage photograph

Frater Tham

“When We Play We Grow Wiser, When We Judge We Grow Older,”

whispered the fairies. 2015

faux vintage photograph 

Frater Tham

“When You Support Others You Nurture Creation,

When You Disparage Others You Murder Worlds,”

whispered the fairies. 2015

faux vintage photograph

Frater Tham

“When We’re Self-Assured We Are Magical,

When We Are Self-Righteous We Are Miserable,"

whispered the fairies. 2015

faux vintage photograph

Megan Morman

Hankies, 2014

fused plastic beads

Rick Gillis

Marlene, 2015

assemblage, poetry, digital design

JB Groves,

Emergence, 2015

mixed media mono-prints on hardwood panels

Lethbridge Downtown BRZ En Plein Air Event During Culture Days 2015:

Artists Sketching in the White Mountains (1868) by Winslow Homer. Oil on panel. 9½" × 15⅞". Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine.
Come draw, paint, photograph, (or whichever medium you use) en plein air in Downtown Lethbridge during Culture Days!

Set up in the downtown core on Saturday, September 26, between 10 am and 4 pm. Be sure to check in with at the Downtown Lethbridge BRZ and Lethbridge Main Street Project office located at 309 - 6 Street South before setting off for any last minute info. Be courteous and remember not to block access to any businesses while creating! (We advise you work in pairs if you feel uncomfortable about being engaged by passersby.)

Please RSVP volunteer organizer Leila Armstrong at leila.armstrong@shaw.ca

Brought to you by the Downtown Lethbridge BRZ (info@downtownlethbridge.com) and the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery (jon.oxley@uleth.ca)

365-Day Drawing Challenge

Some recent drawings for the 365-Day Drawing Challenge.

CABINET OF QUEERIOSITIES III

Opening Reception: Saturday, June 27, 7pm - 9pm.
The exhibition runs June 27 and until September 10, 2015.

Cabinets of Curiosities (or Wunderkammers) were collections of objects that would later be separated into the distinct categories of geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art, and antiquities. During the Renaissance such collections were shown together in what are now considered the early precursors of the modern museum.

Cabinet of Queeriosities III is the third in a series of exhibitions celebrating LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer) history, identity, culture and pride through a similarly diverse range of subject matters and approaches.

This exhibition is about inclusivity rather than exclusivity and strives to provide a range of voices in a variety of media. Some of the artists are parents of LGBTQ children or have LGBTQ friends and/or family members who have inspired them. Others simply refuse to be limited by narrow definitions of masculinity and femininity, male and female, or straight and gay. And, of course, some indentify as LGBTQ and make works that address their positions as such.

Whatever the case, it is my hope that Cabinet of Queeriosities III provokes an open dialogue around issues of identity and diversity in our community.

List of Artists

Cindy Baker
Amanda Bigford
Jennifer Davis
Wayne Dwornik
Darcy Forrest
Rick Gillis
Kiley Granberg
JB Groves
Len Komanac
Lisa Lunn
Megan Mormon
Heather MacDonald-Sorochan
Giselle Peters
Klaus Pinter
Arhea Robinson
Trudi Sissons
Kasia Sosnowski
Frater Tham

Coyote, an exhibition at Casa, Lethbridge

Coyote
Work by Leila Armstrong

November 1 - December 27 2014

It was pre-dawn and, for some reason I have subsequently forgotten, I was driving down an East Vancouver side street. The light had that amazing quality it has just before the sun crests the horizon and everything was eerily still and quiet. Just as I was turning left onto Renfrew Street, a dog trotted across the road. No, not a dog at all. It was skulking, head down. That’s how I recognized it was a coyote.

I have such a vivid recollection of that moment. It seems both dreamlike and hyper-real because of the lack of all other movement and the super saturated quality of the light. It was an encounter with something unexpected. Had it been a dog, I wouldn’t remember it so vividly two decades later.

I have romanticized stumbling upon what many would describe as nuisance wildlife: a non-domesticated animal that annoys and even threatens. We idealize wild animals as majestic and stately, examples of what it means to be unhindered by societal conventions, until we encounter them regularly within the limits of our domain: the barnyard, the pasture, the city park, the school ground, and our backyard.

In November 2009, the Saskatchewan provincial government launched its Coyote Control Program and began offering $20 for every coyote killed (the paws of the animal are submitted as proof of a kill). By May 2010 over 71,000 coyote had been destroyed. Five years later, hunters receive $25/coyote. Biologists and conservationists have decried the hunt, pointing out that coyotes are crucial to keeping gopher, fox, and deer populations in check. Some point out that coyote populations are cyclical and that “nature” will keep things balanced. In April 2010, 37 footless coyote carcasses were discovered in the Cypress Hills in Southeastern Alberta leading Alberta Fish and Wildlife to conclude that Alberta coyotes were being poached for the Saskatchewan bounty. Interestingly, had the culprits been found, the most severe charge they would have faced was littering.

*****

Nicholas Jardine and Emily Spary write that “If a single vision predominates in modern Western society, it is that of a passive and disempowered nature, slave and victim of human agency.”[i]

The coyote defies this vision. In spite of efforts by humans, coyotes are the most effective, non-domesticated, mid-to-large sized animals in terms of expanding their range and population in response to human encroachment. Coyotes thrive in close proximity to humans, living off our detritus, livestock, and pets. Yet, in rural and suburban areas, there is a perception of coyotes as vermin and nuisances. Last year a coyote attacked a Labrador retriever jogging with its owner along Bridge Drive pedestrian path in Lethbridge. On August 28 of this year, CBC reported a Calgary man fought off a coyote in his living room with vacuum cleaner.

My goal is to utilize the coyote as a focal point to address anthropomorphism, hybridization, and adaptation. Rachel Poliquin describes how taxidermy

…always tells us stories about particular cultural moments, about the spectacles of nature that we desire to see, about assumptions of superiority, our yearning for hidden truths, the loneliness and longing that haunt our strange existence of being both within and apart from the animal kingdom.[ii]

It is the desire to hang personal narratives onto dead and mounted animals that gave birth to the works in this exhibition. If taxidermy embodies an “irresolvable tension” between animals and objects,[iii] by physically imposing miniature scenic narratives onto their bodies and bases, I underline that coyotes are part of our cultural imaginary, perpetually teetering between the romantic, moonlight howler and backyard menace.

It is my hope that these works resonate beyond the simplistic enjoyment of the objects themselves. According to Bill Brown, “we look through objects (to see what they disclose about history, society, or culture – above all, what they disclose about us), but we only catch a glimpse of things.”[iv] It is my intention that Coyote is a conduit to old narratives reworked and re-imagined, to new meanings, and – for some – to a better understanding of our environs and the amazing potential of adaptation.

Leila Armstrong

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[i] Nicholas Jardine and Emily Spary, “The natures of cultural history,” Cultures of Natural History, ed. N. Jardine, J. A. Secord, and E. C. Spary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 4.

[ii] Rachel Poliquin, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 10.

[iii] ibid, 5.

[iv] Bill Brown, “Things Theory,” Critical Inquiry 28, no. 1 (2001): 24.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Cabinet of Queeriosities III, Casa (community arts centre), Lethbridge.

Cabinet of Queeriosities III is the 3rd in a series of exhibitions celebrating LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer) history, identity, culture, and pride through a diverse range of subject matters and approaches. In the past, works shown as part of Cabinet of Queeriosities have included video, photography, mixed media, painting, drawing, ceramics, found objects, altered objects, assemblages, and people’s collections of LGBTQ themed items (such a beefcake playing cards and beaver ornaments).

-       This call is open to all artists. You need not identify as LGBTQ but submissions should in some way address LGBTQ history, identity, culture, and/or pride.

-       We welcome submissions in a broad range of media.

-       This exhibition is curated and artists chosen will be paid an honorarium for participating ($25 - $150, depending on the number of artists included).

-       The exhibition is taking place in a community arts centre. We ask that your work be appropriate for viewers of all ages. Works depicting overt sex acts, demeaning depictions of persons, or advocating violence will not be shown. That said, works in the past have certainly been both cheeky and challenging.

-       Each artist, or group of collaborators, may submit up to 3 works, objects, or collections of objects, etc.

-       It is the responsibility of artists to drop off, and pick up, their works at the designated times listed below. Late submissions will not be considered.

Drop off your work in person on June 13 or 14, 2015, between noon and 2 pm. If you are submitting from out of town, ensure your shipped work arrives at Casa the week of June 7 - 14, 2015.

Submissions must include: name, email address, telephone number, mailing address, date of work, media, any special instructions re: installation, value of work, and a brief 50-100 word artist’s statement. You may also include a CV if you wish.

You will be notified whether or not your work has been accepted on, or before, June 19, 2015.

If not accepted, work must be picked up the weekend of June 20 & 21, 2015, between noon and 2 pm (unless you have made alternative arrangements because your work has been shipped from out of town. The artist is responsible for all shipping costs.)

Installation takes place between June 22 – 26, 2015.

The exhibition opens June 27 and runs until September 10, 2015.  (Work must be picked Sept 11 - 13, 2015.)  There will be an opening reception on June 27^th, 2015.

For more information, please contact exhibition coordinator Leila Armstrong at leila.armstrong@shaw.ca or Casa curator Darcy Logan at gallery@artslethbridge.org.

Casa, 230 - 8th Street South, Lethbridge, Alberta, T1J 5H2, Canada, (403) 327-CASA.

Another Coyote Print

Coyote, hand coloured dry point.