The back room at Yukon Artists @ Work, the Solo Show Room, was renovated a year and a half ago to showcase individual artists in the co-operative.
The summer and pre-Christmas months are generally left open to make room for the changing group show that fills the gallery year-round.
This past May, member artist Joyce Majiski was working with the Co-op’s summer student, Jessie Leschart. They measured the room and figured if they gave each artist a space two- feet wide by five-feet across, the room could be filled.
They named the show Tall, Thin, Two by Five and sent out a call to see who was interested.
The small room is almost stuffed with the response.
Majiski collaborated with fellow YA@W member, Lynne Sofiak, on Turned, Twisted, Touched by Fire, a suspended stack of crumpled raku-fired vessels inscribed with lines and marks. A vine threads through the walls and a driftwood base catches pieces at the bottom.
Majiski also contributed Forest Birds, one of the latest in the printmaker’s exploration of painting. She has used oil stick over acrylic on canvas that’s about two-by-four feet, layering linear birds and texture.
The show contains two new collaborative pieces by Paul and Jeanine Baker. Paul works primarily in metal; Jeanine, in glass.
Paul has been exploring the figure, as he finds it, to build from old truck gears, and Water Carrier sports a swinging bead necklace that gives it a strong sense of movement.
Emma Barr brought her own light. If it’s not turned on while you’re there, flip the switch at the bottom. For her large-scale, light-box piece, Light on the land, she’s collaged Japanese paper, theatre gels, birchbark and a spruce branch over a SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) bright light.
Rich Claxton‘s vase, Stands like a tree, adds a bronzy-brown stripe down the side of his characteristic cool-green glaze. Among the tree shapes, look for the spine and buttocks in this intriguing ceramic piece. Its tall, thin form includes a subtle figure.
Kate Williams has knit, felted and beaded a bag that hangs on the wall with a long, thin strap. The bag features a sun or sunflower form. The strap is bent into a moebius strip. With one turn in it, it’s all one surface and makes you wonder how she knit it.
Equally intriguing, Lise Merchant created her wall hanging, Stretching for the sky. Her tree is hand-painted on wool and then hooked. Hooking takes up the width of the picture, so the final result is narrower than the starting painting.
Subtle gradations of colour, and the swaying, upward-reaching lines make this a fascinating piece.
Janelle Hardy and Lara Melnik made tall, thin pieces out of smaller ones. Hardy installed a series of tiny, individually framed watercolour paintings. Melnik created one framed piece, Gathering Daisies, from 10 small, paired polymer-clay pieces.
Catherine Deer brought in a new work: Dust Up depicts a herd of galloping horses in her well-known, highly skilled charcoal and graphite technique. The horses are seen from above and the dust is left white, leaving the horses as soft-edged, ghostly shapes.
And these are just 10 of the show’s 26 pieces.
Tall, Thin, Two by Five is on display until August 31.
