"So this is Christmas and what have you done?"

Dear Collogues, Family, and Friends,
It is hard to believe another year has passed and we are already approaching 2012. As I look back on the highlights of 2011, my favorite part of this last year was the opportunity to connect with both old and new friends; the fellow artists I work with at Wildflower Art Centre, Prospect, and through my Christmas sales. I am very fortunate to work alongside these dedicated and talented people. It has been truly awesome to watch the talents and professionalism of my fellow artists, expand and grow.

Personally, I want to thank (you!) my family and friends for attending exhibitions and sales in support of my artistic endeavors this year. I am always surprised to see your friendly faces in the early morning at some community hall and am amazed how you continued to keep coming out in support me and of my artwork. Lastly, a big thank you to E for his encouragement and assistance over the past year, whether he is helping me with yet another load of artwork or listening to endless "grant rants", he is always willing to lend a hand and an ear.
I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas....

Sayōnara 2011 and hola 2012!
Peace
Lisa Tornack

Bridgeland Christmas Market

Please join us this weekend at the Bridgeland Christmas Market. The show runs from 10am-6pm presenting a variety of wares from local artists. From ceramics and jewelry to paintings and needle felting there is something for everyone!

Merry Ho Ho!

May the grant gods be kind

The past few months have been a busy time for me. I have shifted from my usual focus on studio practice to the practice of grant writing. As Canadians we are very fortunate to have a number of granting bodies devoted to the arts; grants to both individuals artists and arts organizations. Grants are awarded for projects ranging from travel and creation to professional development and equipment acquisition.

The project I have proposed includes a research and production grant. I have been thinking a lot about the cycles of the natural world. A plant's life cycle can be seen in a short period of time from seed, to growth, and then demise. This energy does not leave the earth, it is just transformed into something else. I started thinking about even larger cycles within the natural world, particularly in the formation of the Rockies. Millions of years ago there were mountains, slowly those mountains were transformed into an ocean, and now that same ocean is a mountain once again. I am fascinated in the way that these cycles speak to the interconnection of all living things. The project I have proposed explores these ideas.

Now that the grant is signed and the post mark is stamped. I feel a real sense of accomplishment and look to the sky and hope the grant gods agree.

Baker House Project

This summer I was fortunate enough to work on a collaborative mural project between Prospect Human Services and the Calgary Housing Company; working alongside fellow artist Hannah Poon, as well as a team of adults with developmental disabilities, and tenants of the Baker House. The group came together to create a large scale outdoor mural. The Baker House is located at 222 4th Avenue SW in the heart of Calgary. Next time you are downtown look out for our mural!

A gem in the foothills

Totem outside the Leighton education center














There is a hidden gem located in the heart of the foothills, just 15 km south of Calgary, the Leighton Art Centre. The Leighton Centre was originally the home of the Canadian artist A.C. Leighton and his wife Barbara. In 1974 Barbara Leighton established a school and artist studios, which is still in operation today. Along side the education centre, the family home was bequeathed to the foundation and converted into a museum and gallery. The Leighton Foundation currently offers artist members a venue to exhibit their work as well as access to the vast 80 km property; as a source of inspiration and a space to create in the magnificent foothills landscape. This summer, I have been fortunate to able to spend my Thursdays volunteering at the art centre. Along side one of my clients, I have been pulling weeds, feeding fish, and sweeping up.

Visit the Leighton Art Centre; make a day of it after visiting the Millarville farmer's market!

Tip Your Hat!

"Spaghetti Western: Fornasetti Hat" Lisa Tornack


I am pleased to announce my participation in the 3rd Annual Tip Your Hat event! Tip your Hat, is an auction proceeding fine arts programming for Calgarians experiencing homelessness. The live auction will take place on Wednesday July, 13th, 2001 on Stephen Avenue Mall in downtown Calgary, Alberta during Stampede week. Special guests will model these unique hats designed by This is My City artists. The inspiration for my hat, "Spaghetti Western" came from the designs of the Italian artist Piero Fornasetti. This mixed media cowboy hat uses collage, oil and spray paint to create a surreal dream. http://www.fornasetti.com/

During the royal visit the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge received a hat from TMC artist Jody Williams! One of our hats is now in the collection of the Royal Family, now come down and get yours!

This is My City Arts Society (TMC) is a not for profit organization that uses the arts to create awareness about the issues of homelessness and poverty in Calgary. For more information on TMC go to: www.tmccalgary.wordpress.com or join our Facebook Group “This Is My City Society”

Inspired by Nature

In my home, I recently took on a patio re-new, like my studio re-new of last spring. I purchased new chairs, window boxes, and plants to create an oasis in the city; as a source of inspiration. When purchasing plants for my patio re-new just like painting on canvas, I tried to select different colours, heights, and textures. My favorite planter on the patio is the one made up of succulents. I created visual interest in the pot by layering different sizes and hues of planters together.

While researching plants and container gardening I came across a few interesting websites on how to maximize spaces both great and small.

Wooly Wally Pockets, this company manufactures felt pockets used for vertical container gardening. The way it works is, wool like raw clay pots, wicks away moisture from the soil storing it in its fibers. When the soil is dry, the water held in the pocket's fibres slowing seeps back into the soil. I made my own felt pockets by purchasing industrial weight felt from the fabric store and then grommeted holes for hanging. These pockets are ideal for spaces both great and small and ideal for herbs that like to dry out between waterings.
http://www.woollypocket.com/

An interesting trend in vertical gardening is the living wall. Trailing plants are mounted into vertical grid systems. The creator of a large concept vertical gardens is the French botanist Patrick Blanc. It is seen here on a smaller scale on the exterior of a wine bar.

A colleague of mine was doing some research of her own and turned me on to another interesting way to garden vertically creating "moss graffiti". Moss graffiti uses living moss spores to create words and images, in both indoor and outdoor spaces. By blending a simple recipe of buttermilk, sugar, and live moss; these green works of art can then be painted onto porous surfaces, such as wood, stone, or brick.

What is oil paint?

For those of you new to painting there are many different materials or "mediums" to paint with. From acrylics, oils, and watercolors, to gauche and tempera each of these materials have there own unique properties. For the past eight years I have been working with oil paints. Oil paints are slow drying paints composed of pigment suspended in oil; usually linseed oil which is extracted from flax plants. The key distinction from oil paint and those listed above is oils are not water soluble.

Common pigments used in oil paints can be divided onto two categories mineral salts and earth pigments. Mineral salts include titanium, zinc, and cadmium, these salts create whites and the color hues from yellow to red. Earth pigments have been used for thousands of years and were used to create the first known paintings located in the caves of Chauve, France (see above). The earth pigments include umbers and siennas. Unlike the raw pigments, the burnt varieties are extracted from clays by heating and driving off the water from the clay, leaving behind the charred pigment. Hence the name burnt umber and burnt sienna. Many names for the pigments also come from the places where the minerals were first found. Sienna, short for "terra di Siena" was originally extracted in Siena, Italy. While umber from the Italian word "umbra" meaning shadow, was originally was mined in Umbria, a mountainous region of central Italy.

Why use oil paint and what is the advantage of using oils, over the easy to clean water soluble paints mentioned above? The one number reason to use oils is color and luminosity of the medium. Because the pigments are suspended in oil the color maintains an inner light or luminosity when dried. I have also noticed a richness of color with the medium of oil. With acrylics, the more you blend color the "muddier" the color becomes, however with oil color the more you blend color becomes more sophisticated it becomes. Artists also take advantage of oil's slow drying time; because the painting can be wet up to 10 days (depending on levels of humidity) you are able to go back in and rework the piece. Watercolors in contrast to oils, dry very quickly and can be quite unforgiving.

Handmade Here! Artist Collective

Join us Saturday April 30th, for Handmade Here! Spring Art Sale.
Handmade Here! showcases the talents of artists that live and create right here in Calgary! From ceramics and fiber arts to painting and glass there is something for everyone! Just in time for Mother's day!

Triwood Community Center and Arena
2244 Chicoutimi Drive Northwest
Calgary, AB
10-5pm

Featured Artisans include:
Jill Nuckles- Needle Felting
Rachel Collins- Fused Glass Pendants
Barbara Rumberger- Blown Glass
Jeff Yee- Photography
Lisa Tornack- Paintings
Joan Irvin- Jewellery
Cindy Plomp- Cynderella Bags
Tracy Franks- Paintings
Lisa Cerny- Blown Glass
Nicole Tremblay- Blown Glass
Kelly Hicks- Heritage House Toffee
Linda Cote- Wood Cut Prints
Dawn Saunders-Dahl- Paintings
Janice McDonald- Felt
Aldo Marchese- Ceramic Artist
Anna Bilek- Glass Bead Jewellery
Julia Schumacher- Ceramic Artist
Jackie Morton – Drawing & Painting

Food + Art

I am pleased to announce a display of my artwork at one of Calgary's fine vegetarian restaurants. The Coup, located at 924 17 Ave SW. The show is currently on display and will be up until May 8th, 2011. If you have never been to The Coup it is definitely worth a visit. Try my dinner favorite the "Beachfront Hot Pot".
www.thecoup.ca

Roads to Abstraction

Salvador Dalí
1944

As my practice continues to expand and grow, my work is becoming more and more abstract. Abstraction is defined as the process of taking away or removing characteristics from something in order to reduce it to a set of essential characteristics. In art abstraction can mean a few things, one the moving away from depicting objects from life (as they actually are) reducing them to shapes, colors, or marks. For example turning an object upside down or zooming so that the whole can longer be seen. Another device of abstraction made famous by Salvador Dali, is the placement of real life objects in usual places. The above image titled "Dream caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Waking up" with an extraordinarily long title, is one of my favorites of Dali.

Often times because abstraction is not very well understood, uninformed viewers see it as simple or easy. But the reality is moving towards abstraction is far more difficult. More often than not, artists slowly move in that direction by employing some abstract elements into their pieces. Although my work is firmly rooted in nature, there has been a move towards the abstract, as my earlier paintings are far more representational. For example the inspiration for the below piece "Blue Abstraction" came from a series of photographs. I photographed plant matter in the autumn; depicting fallen and slumped foliage. Working from these photographs I painted layers of the forms over one another, giving the plants an almost anthropomorphic quality.

As of late, there has been a even bigger move towards the abstract in my work. I have been experimenting with my palette knife applying fresh swashes of paint, in vibrant colour to depict the falling leaf. This development is the abstract device of reduction; reducing the leaf to colours and shapes. The result has lead to a new approach to my work.


"Blue Abstraction", oil on canvas, 2005


detail work in progress


This work in progress, illustrates the use of palette knife and abstraction by "reduction"

Opening at Studio C

You are invited to experience Mediating Perceptions. The exhibition features the mental rumination and visual disseminations by Prospect & Studio C instructors.

Studio C is a unique integrated Community Art and Resource Centre – a venue where artists with and without disabilities achieve collaboration, inspiration and immersion within Calgary’s art community.

Join us for the opening March 3, 2011 5-8pm
Studio C, Art Central #9 100 7th Ave SW, Calgary, AB
Exhibition continues through to from March 26th, 2011.

www.prospectnow.ca

Happenstance

A few years age I made a mistake, while at the art supply store. I was looking for linseed oil and grabbed stand oil instead. After I got home and realized my mistake and the next day I went back to the art store to return the item. Since I had broken the seal the cashier said she couldn’t take it back. I took the stand oil back to my studio frustrated thinking, what am I going to do with this?

Stand oil is a thick additive for oil paint. Unlike regular linseed oil which extends and improves the flow of oils, stand oil (a by product of linseed oil) works in the opposite way. Stand oil looks and acts like honey, it pours slowly and is thick and gooey. Stand oil acts to thicken paint and when dry, adds a high gloss to surfaces. I began using stand oil on my canvases pouring it directly on to my paintings. The medium works best when the painting is laying flat. Stand oil can be spread with a large brush or better yet a palette knife. The best quality of this medium is the ability to suspend pigment within and through out the thick layers. I often use stand oil in the “skies” of my landscapes to add a brilliant sheen to the surfaces. The downside to this medium is it adds to the drying time of paintings (up to 10 days depending on the thickness). It also can tend to sag and shrivel when applied too thick.

The moral of this story is my mistake lead to new ways of working. There are many different mediums that can be added to enhance the paints properties and open doors to new ways of working your canvases.

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.”

Pablo Picasso

Some find inspiration in a muse, some in music, or the natural world as a source for their creativity. For me, I am inspired by all of these things, but above all that is inspiring is discipline. I paint because I need to paint, it is part of who I am and it is what I do to level myself out. It is an outlet for me. But having said that what gets me in the studio is discipline, not inspiration. I do not wait for inspiration to strike and I paint even when I don't feel like it. It is a lot like exercise for many people, often it is hard to get started but after wards you are always glad you did it. At the end of a painting session I feel a sense of accomplishment and re-energized.

In the new year began re-working the above piece, started in 2010. I begun experimenting with thick layers of paint, applied with a palette knife. I often use falling leaves in my work as a symbol of calm. It occurred to me one day to use a thick swash of paint to represent the leaf. That a swash of paint could be fresh and less contrived than drawing and filling in the leaf shape. This thought lead to the thick application of more paint on the canvas. Although still a work in progress this piece may be a preview of new directions for me in 2011.

If there is something you have been wanting to start this year, go ahead and take the first step, do not wait for inspiration to strike.
Just do it!