At this Salon for Creatives meeting, while we absorbed the late September sun — soon to fade away into the night — we shared artworks that we found “stunning”.
I talked about Ana Mendieta who is a Cuban-born and American-raised artist. She described her work as “earth-body” art:
“Yo trabajo con la tierra, con la naturaleza, y hago esculturas en el paisage, en el ambiente”
In the summer of 1975, having returned to Mexico, Ana created the first of her Siluetas series in which she left an imprint of her body in the ground. Her silhouette pieces became a kind of signature, and were often executed in stones, leaves and twigs, flowers and driftwood, and sometimes set on fire, outlined by fireworks or drenched with red paint. I am fascinated by her courage to use her body in her art in a way to connect with her ancestral land which she was away most of her life.
Carly presented a large-scale public project by Kara Walker: A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant. Sited in the industrial relics of Brooklyn’s legendary Domino Sugar Factory, Walker’s expansive installation—a massive, sugar-coated sphinx-like woman—responded to the building and its history. New York-based artist Kara Walker is best known for her search of race, gender, sexuality, and violence through silhouetted figures that have appeared in numerous exhibitions worldwide.
(Image from Kara Walker web site, photography: Jason Wyche)
Kate presented Morning Altars by by Day Schildkret
She finds the impermanence of his work stunning. Here is how he works
morning time. take basket and go on walk.
stay alert. watchful. forage.
hike to hill or creek bed.
clear space.
be quiet and listen.
build altar: feathers, leaves, berries, bones.
pray. offer it.
watch it alter.
Solar Amulet
Salt Spring Island, BC | Summer 2020
MADE FROM grass (species?) and earth
PROCESS: For just a week in the summer, these wild lanky grasses growing along the forest path are wrapped in these golden yellow bands on their
body. While playing with them, they took the shape of a circle or an eye — something else looking back at me.
MAY WE keep returning to the source
(Photo by Day Schildkret)