20 October, 2018

Here comes trouble

This small person ...


Spencer visits Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre in Jerusalem

Architectural exegesis: coming out into the light after a devastating dark tunnel.


Front

Yet another in an endless blessed long line of bright and shifting day-long vistas that have played themselves out for all these years as we look out our living room window, or off the porch and out toward the north. Not such a bad choice, buying this old house ...
 

13 October, 2018

What it's all about, or maybe where it's at


Rubenesque

Generous, beautiful proportions, radiating lines and dramatic gestures, lush draperies, nudity. Wouldn't you say?


Sarah, w' collaborator Caitlin Connolly, opens an art exhibit at Provo's Writ and Vision Gallery, October 5, 2018

This is a big deal! This was a great night.

The venue, bustlingly located at 474 West Center Street, Provo. Things were hopping here, from the 6 (:07) opening, all the way through to 9:30 or so. Dozens and dozens. Scores. Hundreds, actually.






















Setting up. The elderly woman in the red down vest features prominently throughout the evening, and throughout the course of the artist's life.


















Gallery proprietor Brad Kramer (coincidentally once a guest on Dad's radio show [https://bit.ly/2Ejl41Y]) was very patient and accommodating, and did a very nice job setting everything up. Here's looking from the front to the back, and from the back to the front.







































The exhibit's start and introduction.





















































Sarah, by Caitlin (with preparatory sketch), and Caitlin, by Sarah.
























Now this monumental triptych, the exhibit's focal point and conceptual centre: Longing Loving Giving

These were co-conceived, drawn by Caitlin and carved by Sarah.

















The wood panels from which these prints were struck were also on display, just across and down. You might say that this process is kind of like figure animation. Practitioners become familiar with and adept at it. They come to take it for granted, quite naturally. Outsiders, however, are always kind of amazed, no matter how many the exposures or familiarity. How do people even do things like this?!

One of these is two sided, which complicated the conversation with the lady who wanted to buy the carvings, and not the prints taken therefrom.









































This monumental thing is the show's other centrepiece. Concept and composition by both, form and outlines by Caitlin, faces and patterns by Sarah. The latter were executed by a subcontractor. Look at that! These ladies are already an atelier.






















Some old familiar solo pieces are included in the show. The last one sold, and for quite a bit of money. Kind of sad to see it go!


























































Parenthetical: Here's the last appearance of that beautiful quilt that features Jesus, Drew, Claire, and an unidentified short person. A mother-daughter artist duo, Mum and Sarah indexically adjacent at our last stake conference:

















Sarah and Caitlin collaborated on some smaller pieces too. (Now with Sarah's preliminary study.) Speed, lightness, but with undercurrents.























































These are smaller, but the power of the current is immediately evident! Women with deep roots ... (Cut, now, from linoleum.)



















































































Incidentally, there's a fun and instructive space in the back featuring some of the artists' scribbles and notes and drafts and conversations.



















Sarah produced some new solo work too. This leafy print happened after Sarah had a brief sit on a bench outside the Provo Rec Centre.













































There are all kinds of artistry; Mum makes her contribution to the evening.























Many people, circulating. We were grateful to, we are grateful for old U of U soccer mates, ex-mission companions, good friends from the neighbourhood and from work and from some of Mum's various running groups, for a certain super-devoted auntie, for siblings and cousins, for everybody!

(Caitlin Connolly makes a cameo appearance in the second photograph, in conversation with Janice and Sharon.)























Parent/child.


















Beverage, explanation.


















Whoo!


















And in the end? Well, for one thing there was, shall we say, revenue. And much more besides. A very big deal, and a really great night.

Coda: at evening's end Mum photographs Sarah and Caitlin and her tremendous assistant Telana. That's a wrap!


11 October, 2018

Homecoming, the last

This just in—Sarah took way better photos of that big night than Dad did! Claire being the point, we'll leave those other ones up. Claire being the point, and her skillful sister too, we'll add these to the record. (Once again, watch for the surprise cameo by father-in-law Wade Winegar, driving his own vintage truck!)