Saturday, December 4, 2010

Winter Solstice

Denise J. Dowdy posing at her Hintonburg studio with one of her street crack etchings from her ongoing series “From the Ground Up”, is one of five female artists participating in a show at Credible Edibles
Bringing the outside in
Area artist contributes to five- woman Winter Solstice art show
By Kathleen Wilker
In the Stables Art Studio at 155 Loretta Ave North, painter, sculptor and mixed media artist Denise J. Dowdy introduces her favourite ‘found art’ sculptures.
The first piece is a beautiful, three-foot red oak log that has grown circled in on its own hollow centre. Capped with a slice of itself that could be arms held in an embrace, the Fairmont Ave resident calls the piece her “found art mascot.”
“I asked if I could keep the log for an art project,” says Dowdy, explaining that she was walking on NCC land when she happened upon the wood, which was slated to be cut up for firewood. “They agreed and even sliced a few pieces off the top that I’ve used for shelter sculptures.”
Dowdy posing at her Hintonburg studio with one of her shelter sculptures
- the 'found-art mascot' is in the background




















The Stables Art Studio, which houses 17 artist studios, is so named because it was once home to a stable of horses who delivered bread from the nearby Enriched Bread Artists Studio (formerly a bread factory). For Dowdy (http://denisejdowdy.multiply.com ), a self-taught artist who learns new techniques from workshops whenever the opportunity arises, the location beside NCC land has proven useful in the ongoing quest for found art.
Along with sculptures made from found objects, Dowdy finds beauty and unanswered questions in the urban landscape of Kitchissippi. Riding her bike along St. Francis Street, she happened to look down and see an organic-looking crack in the asphalt below her tire. Dowdy immediately returned to create a 14-foot etching of the crack.
“It’s like a web or a cocoon,” she says, remembering the curious reactions she got from passersby while she was etching. Months later, the etching is now a sculpture of driftwood, roots, metal, wire and soil that hangs from the ceiling of Dowdy’s studio.
Dowdy shows me her encaustic – bees wax and oil pigment – paintings, and I lean in close to smell the honey preserved in the beeswax. It’s a breath of summer air on a rainy and cold early-winter morning.
“I create these encaustic paintings outside in the summer, so they are seasonal for me,” says Dowdy who has to be careful not to trap living bees, attracted by the scent of honey, in her paintings. It’s fitting that two of Dowdy’s encaustic pieces will be part of the five-woman Winter Solstice group art exhibit held at Credible Edibles (located at 78 Hinton Ave.) from Dec. 2 to Jan. 14.
“The idea of a Winter Solstice art show has been percolating in my head for some time,” says show curator Stephanie Guimond, a painter and Westboro resident (www.creativelivingexperiment.com).
The art show, opening with a vernis- sage on Thursday Dec. 2 from 8 to 9:30 p.m., is a gathering of reflections on the arrival of winter and the shifts it brings with it. Other participating Ottawa artists are Natasha Beaudin, Jo-Anne Guimond, Ellen Ramsey and Mimi Richard-Golding who will be showing their photography and paintings.
Judi Varga-Toth of Credible Edibles will be offering two special dinner sittings at 5:30 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. on Dec. 2, prior to the vernissage.
Reservations via email are recommended: info@credibleedibles.ca

1 comment:

  1. it struck me that you are self-taught because there is something in your art that has a masterful touch, like somebody who had been an artist all their life, and it has a kind of elegance that more often comes from some sort of long-term training than just from a natural gift. in art school artists start with a natural ability (you can't get in without showing that you have that in some way) and then apply focused training, as an artist you have a unique perspective on development because you are self-taught to begin with, and whatever else, classes, etc. that you did, obviously works!

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