State of the Practice is an annual exhibition highlighting the Vancouver Park Board’s longstanding commitment to artists working in the community to engage citizens in creative practices. From September 17 – 29, the Roundhouse Exhibition Hall will transform into a vibrant, buzzing studio with workshops encouraging artists and community members to problem solve, build, tan, sew, and net-make, while multi-artist collaborations related to shared land and sea cultural traditions unfold.
Photos, samples, and artworks on display will highlight the ‘community studio’ events led by EartHand Gleaners Society at two public park sites—Means of Production and Trillium North Park — both creative commons for growing art-crop materials and hosting seasonal-based outdoor workshops and celebrations. For more about related programming see www.earthand.com.

Exhibition 
DATE Mon Sep 17 – Sat Sep 29
TIME Mon-Fri 9am-9:45pm, Sat-Sun 9am-4:45pm
TICKETS Free

Opening Reception
DATE Thu Sep 20
TIME 6-8pm
TICKETS Free
LOCATION Exhibition Hall

Artists Talk
With June Pardue and Peter Ananin
DATE Thu Sep 20
TIME 8-9pm
TICKETS Free
LOCATION Performance Centre

Lorraine Roy's Woven Woods exhibition, comprised of 12 round wall hangings, is now at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum in Vancouver until November 4th.

"In the top six inches of the forest floor lies a vast and flourishing communication system as old as photosynthesis itself. This is where we find an exquisitely balanced symbiotic relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and tree roots which provides a network of channels for resources and messages between individual trees. The resulting plant chatter is as complex and efficient as our own worldwide web. In recent research, biologists have discovered the existence of Mother trees: larger, older specimens that, with the help of their fungi, serve as system hubs in life and as nutrient sources in death. This mycorrhizal network thus connects and stabilizes the forest, and by extension, our entire planet's biosphere.
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Fascinated by this current research, I applied for an Ontario Arts Council Grant to travel to the University of British Columbia and meet Dr Suzanne Simard who is a leader in this field. Together with her and some of her gracious Grad students, I toured her lab and field facilities on campus and through the mountains to Kamloops. It was an amazing experience.

The resulting exhibition, entitled Woven Woods, is a collection of twelve circular quilted wall hangings, measuring 36 to 45" in diameter, each depicting twelve trees of varying types, seasons and stages of growth, and portraying a different aspect of their connection with the mycorrhizal net. Each circle encloses the story of a thriving ecosystem, where all individual elements contribute to support the whole.
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The circle, which is a shape symbolizing infinity, also happens to be the shape of the earth, a cross section of tree root and even a single spore. We use circles to describe the flow of our seasons, our measure of time, and the movements of biological systems through their cycles. The title Ubuntu, given as a prefix to each wall hanging, is an African word which means "I am, because you are."
Since fabric is itself a plant or animal product, it is an ideal material for expressing and capturing the attributes of natural forms, and the techniques I use mirror processes that bring order to diverse and humble materials. For materials, I used fabrics of all kinds, mainly dyed and printed cottons, some silks, a variety of synthetics and sheers, and cotton batting. In a few of them I also used acrylic paint. They are all machine appliqued and quilted, and hang freely without frames.

The pieces in this collection will be available for purchase at the end of their touring schedule, in 2021 or later. For the touring locations and dates, click HERE."


​Lecture: Woven Woods: A Journey through the Forest Floor
Sept 13, 2018 at 7 PM
Floral Hall, Van Dusen Botanical Gardens,Vancouver, BC
I will speak about creating Woven Woods, and the fascinating science of tree communication.
Purchase your $15 ticket by clicking HERE.

Lecture: Call of the Heartwood: My Creative Journey with Trees
Sept 17, 2018 at 7 pm
The Little Red Church, Comox, Vancouver Island
How trees wove themselves into my heart and my art.
Tickets are $10. To reserve, contact Jessie Schut at j.schut(at)shaw.ca or 250-331-0156.

If you're on the Sunshine Coast or planning on spending time there I'm hosting weekly Community Indigo vat's on most Tuesdays for indigo-savvy folks into November, as well as am offering it by appointment for one-on-one or group dye sessions for those people who have no experience with indigo. Find dates and prices at the link below and feel free to email me with questions // janna (at) everleayarn.ca

https://www.everleayarn.ca/calendar/

xoJanna

cut| weave | throw | print
curated by Lesley Finlayson

Elissa Cristall Gallery 
2239 Granville Street

​Opening Reception with the Artists
Thursday September 13, 6 - 8 pm
Exhibition continues to September 29, 2018

"In a world of artifice easily facilitated by user friendly technology I curated this exhibition to present art in which the works elegantly manifest the artists’ discernment, understanding and knowledge of techniques which are critical to their practices and to the work coming into existence. The skills involved are physical, intellectual, psychological and emotional, combined with a multi-layered and highly specialized familiarity with a range of materials, hand tools and equipment developed over centuries. These are the quanta of the creative processes which allow each artist to explore the infinite possibilities of material and technique. The nature of infinite possibilities of materials in an artist’s hands and knowledge in their minds, drives artists to explore and test the nebulous boundaries of their practice. Sometimes the results are catastrophic, as forms collapse or materials disintegrate into chaos. Sometimes boundaries are crossed into another realm: weaving becomes sculptural, clay is woven into frozen fire, the staccato snips of scissors through paper become the construction of time, steel incising copper becomes drawing on paper. In all this work we see traces of decisions made and remade, of pentimento, of errors corrected, or not, of directions started, pushed or abandoned. Surrounding the work in the gallery we see shadows cast in light and space, including our own shadows as viewers. More subtly perhaps, within each piece we sense the shadow of the artist’s self, the human."  -  Lesley Finlayson, Curator