The Wellington County Museum Gallery website offers all of the details about the dates and hours their upstairs Gallery is open to share this beautiful Exhibition. It is receiving wonderful reviews from arts enthusiast across Ontario and beyond. If you have the chance to get to the Guelph/Fergus area between now and June 5th, please do make your way to this amazing Museum. Everyone is welcome and do plan to take friends and family. The Museum offers something for everyone, including a great Exhibit of the Quilts of Renske Helsmuth running concurrently with our Exhibition.
Creating new work for Exhibitions in 2014 has been both challenging and really enjoyable, and adds some excitement to the days as spring is evolving. The two pieces below were worked during January and February 2014 specially for the CONNECTIONS FIBRE ARTISTS Exhibition.
My work shown below is part of my contribution to the show, and both were created with dyed fabrics and paints, using the inspiration of the Group of Seven artists as a guide for creating new and original work. The process was fun and the results, as always, surprising. You just never know until the fabric reveals itself after the process work is complete.
Working with thickened Procion MX dyes as the application medium for "Into The Bog" went amazingly well. I used Potato Dextrin and Soy Wax Batik techniques for laying in the base "roots" and added the background overcoat of full strength India Ink over the layered batik design with a foam paint roller for "Darkness, Pine Rack". Both processes were experiments that could ultimately result in my delight or leave me with fabrics that may or may not work in an art quilt application at all...I was lucky with these pieces.
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| INTO THE BOG, Bethany Garner 2014 |
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| DARKNESS, PINE RACK, Ontario Woodland, Bethany Garner 2014 |
I am so pleased to be able to share space in the exhibition with the 27 talented and well known artists of the CONNECTIONS FIBRE ARTISTS Group, and am humbled by the beauty and expertise demonstrated in their many varying individual works of art. As a new member of CONNECTIONS, I certainly am excited to have the opportunity to learn and grow through future meeting/workshop days, and under the tutelage and with the commitment of the members of the group to share skills and techniques. Each member is renowned for his/her art, and I have much to learn.
Plans are currently underway for exploring more opportunities to offer this exhibition to Galleries in Ontario that welcome fibre, and be able to share the work with residents across the province. We also hope to be able to develop our plans for another new Exhibition that could be ready to share in the next year. Each member brings his/her own perspective and talent to the exhibition floor, and it is so exciting to see the new work as it is revealed.
Please consider a visit to the Museum Gallery before June 5th, and if you are a collector, many of the pieces are available for sale and would be a dynamic addition to your art collection. For purchase details, contact the Exhibition Curator, Susan Duncan at the Museum www.wellington.ca/museum
