PICTURE DAY FOR THE TWO DAY INVITATIONAL COUNTRY CRAFT FAIR AND MARKET MERCANTILE

Last week a small group of artists and artisans got together at Whispergreen farm in Carlisle, Ontario to take a few promotional pictures that will be used to promote the upcoming invitational Country Craft Fair and Old-Fashioned Market Mercantile. the Fair and Mercantile will be held at Whispergreen farm on the weekend of August 25 and 26th.

The mastermind behind the country craft fair and market festival is Julie Johnson, the proprietor of Whispergreen farm. Jule also has a shop on Etsy called, Rustic Revivals. Rustic Revivals specializes in Farm house/Cabin/Cottage decor, Salvage Art and Primitive One of a Kinds, Reclaimed, Recycled, Upcycled,Natural, Mother Earth...specifically, the salvage of barn wood and board, folk art painting of it, also salvaged metals, sewing of prim dolls and ornaments, burlap, horses, boxes and baskets of barn wood and tobacco lathe (slat) wood, wall plaques and wall decor for home decorating and centerpieces, all from reclaimed wood, natural tree or stone ornaments, or salvaged parts of antiques...distressed, crackled, old, but UNSHACKLED!



she is also the captain of UPECO which is an Etsy team. Upeco stands for: Unique Primitives, Enviro-Conscious & Countrylovers (you can be all of these and even better!) This is for all the fabulous artists who work at protecting and promoting either our history, our country-side and natural wonders, or both.
This will include lovers of Country, Primitive, Salvage Art, Upcyclers, and Recyclers. Favorite Materials should be: barnboard, woods of all kinds, natural objects from forest and field, found objects, scrap metals, rags, cottons, burlaps, jute, hemp, recycled paper, etc.

Four of us who turned up for pictures, including Julie. I was the first to arrive, Julie was in the barn finishing off on an interview with a reporter from the Flamborough Review. Shortly after the interview was finished, Merv and Jean arrived. Although it was a chilly outside we lined up in period costumes for these pictures.

The gentleman on the left is Merv McCartney, Merv specializes in knitting. Beside Merv is Jean Rivers of Rivers Watercolours. Jean is holding up one of her lovely watercolours of cows. Beside Jean is none other than Grinling Gibbons of Bayshore Woods. Grinling is holding up two of his finest pieces; The Master and the Three Warriors. Beside Grinling is Julie Johnson of Rustic Revivals. Julie is holding two of her pieces from her shop. One piece is a Cabin Cushion, which is made from burlap with a recycled frill from an old pillowcase with leaves and moose. The other piece is Julie's iconic Shaker style Cheese box with original folk art horse theme painted by a Canadian artist.

I t was great to meet some of the people that I will be exhibiting with in August.

Here are a few more pictures featuring Grinling Gibbons.

FIVE NEW PIECES

I have five new pieces that I have completed. Actually, some of them are pieces that I started some time ago and came back to them recently to finish them. At least one of the pieces I set aside because I could not make up my mind on how I was going to finish the piece. The others, I just did not get around to finishing them. I wanted to have some pieces to put on Etsy so I finished these five pieces.

Composition #1 (15X10 inches)

This piece I call Composition #1. It grew out of the idea of contrasts. I want to use different pieces of wood that would evoke the idea of contrasts. I chose pieces of birch that were very clear. I contrasted pieces of light and dark birch. On the left hand side I used pieces of plywood that I had cut into slices to contrast the striations of the light and dark areas of the plywood against the clarity of the birch. I liked the idea because it creates a sense of tension in the contrast. Also, I feel a sense of musical movement descending in tone from left to right.

The next three pieces are similar in the sense that they are composed of rectangles of wood that were cut consecutively  from the same piece of wood. The patterns were creating by arranging the pieces in an order that made sense to me or resonated at some psychic level.

Transitions (6X10 inches)

I called this piece Transitions. The pattern is created from defects in the end grain of the wood. The pattern flows from block to block then inverts itself and returns to a pattern similar to the beginning but never entirely the same.

This piece I call Flights of Fantasy. what I like about this piece is that it evokes entirely different images in different people. I see the images as a bird, a machine or even a person rising up in flight to wherever it is they want to go , would like to go. To me it is a liberating , freeing image. On the other hand, my wife sees the images as something sensual and erotic. I could see it as well but only after she pointed it out to me. You will have to find your own flight of fantasy in this piece.Flights of Fantasy(6X9 inches)

The Scream (3X7 inches)

The piece, called The Scream reminded me of the painting by Edvard Munch.

The Scream by Edvard Munch

Screaming Pope by Francis Bacon

 The Screaming Pope also evokes the idea of this small piece. It is composed of two consecutive slices of wood. when I held them together the image that you jumped out at me.

All three pieces were created without changing the surface of the wood other than sanding the wood and finishing it. This is something different from my usual wood carving. Usually I am trying to remove layers of wood to find what the wood has to reveal. In a way, it is only the technique that is different. The idea of reusing wood that would have been discarded is the same as well as following the nature of the wood to see what it reveals is also to same. I think we should use technique as a tool and not be limited by only one method of arriving at the final destination.

The last of five pieces was carved in the usual manner.

Chinese Poem (6X11 inches)

I had a lot of fun carving this piece. It  is a relief carving with varying depths to make some parts more prominent than other parts. The wood came from the frame of one of the windows that I renovated in our home. I removed the old window which was broken and leaked air like a sieve and replace it with a new air-tight window. I as much of the wood from the window frame as I could.

The Chinese characters are from a poem that I read in a book by a Chinese calligraphy artist. The calligraphy was beautiful and the poems were interesting. I like this poem because it expresses how I feel about Bayshore Woods. Here is a rough Translation, "Stillness In The Green Pine Forest". I took a lot of liberties with the Chinese characters by lengthening parts, exaggerating parts and generally changing them until they flowed on the wood in a way that I liked. However, I did not change the characters so much that they were illegible. Also, I did not place them in any particular order on the wood so you can read them and interpret them as you like. That is part of the fluidity of Chinese poetry.

Well, there they are, five new pieces, different yet the same. Once I finish my grand daughter's crib which is very close to completion, I will have more time to finish and work on other pieces.