YUKON ART SOCIETY GALLERY
The YAS gallery features exhibitions by Yukon Art Society members. A typical season features a wide cross-section of Yukon artists working in a variety of media. The gallery presents the work of emerging to professional artists, with a special interest in mentoring and presenting emerging artists. YAS artists are also featured in our gift shop.
Please contact us for more information about
becoming a member or submitting a proposal to exhibit.
Lineages and Linkages
Curated by Sandra G Storey
From left to right back row: Lynne Sofiak, Ken Anderson, James Kirby, Shiela Alexandrovich,
Nicole Bauberger and Naomi Cree. Front row: Brian Francis, Sarah McCullough, Sandra Grace Storey,
Katherine Alexander and Bianca Martin. Missing: Linda Thorseth
The Journal
The project began over a year ago and was built upon the idea of matching experienced master artists with unknown and emerging artists. The project honours the practice in which a “master” works and dialogues with an apprentice (mentee) in a one on one environment. This creative intimacy where skills, language and experience are passed on directly is bound to create ripples. Pairing these artists is like casting a stone in still water. I am beginning to count the ripples.
The beginning
I have been involved in two similar projects, in Vancouver in 1991 and New Zealand in 2003. Once as a mentee, fresh from Emily Carr College of Art and once as the facilitator of a similar event. In both projects, master artists were invited and expected to name and work with their own choice of mentees. The project would culminate in an exhibition that could only be described as exceptional. Lineages and Linkages 2011 was developed differently in that both mentors and mentees had to apply to participate . A jury of three chose five mentors and six mentees and introduced them to each other and the project in May, 2010.
May, 2010
Master Ken Anderson, First Nations carver, photographer and printmaker is paired with
mentees Brian Francis and Naomi Crey. Both emerging artists have been part of the Sundog Carving program and are involved in traditional and contemporary First Nations visual art.
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| Ken Anderson in the studio | Brian Francis with a work in progress |
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Master James Kirby, jeweler, metal caster, carver of stone and bone is paired with Bianca Martin. Bianca has participated in the Sundog Carving program, is a teacher and multi-media explorer with a particular interest in stone carving.
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| Bianca Martin at work |
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| Master James Kirby with Bianca | James' work in progress |
Master Lynne Sofiak, ceramic artist is paired with Linda Thorseth ceramic artist and painter.
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| Linda Thorseth in the studio | Lynne Sofiak glaze work |
Master Sheila Alexandrovich, multi-media sculptor, jeweler, teacher and collaborator is paired with Katheryne Alexander. Katheryne is an emerging multi-media and metal artist; possibly recognized as the creator of the elegant fork bugs.
Master Nicole Bauberger, painter, poet and passionate artist is paired with Sarah Mucullough. Sarah is a teacher, collage artist and painter.
The next phase
Lineage and Linkages artists were introduced to each other with the expectation that they would work together to develop a body of work to be exhibited at the Arts Underground, February 2011. This work will be documented, catalogued and hopefully will travel to the communities, promoting the passing on of knowledge, skills and language.
The exhibition will be presented in groupings featuring the Master artists and the mentee. Artists may choose to work separately within the same theme or medium or they may produce collaborative work.
It is up to the artists to arrange schedules and ideas. The Arts Underground supports with making space, materials and guidance available. Marlene Collins and Charlene Alexander worked hard to procure sufficient funding to support the artists with costs of travel, time and materials.
Visiting and talking with the artists at their studios has been a delight. Nicole and Sarah are working together on the idea of place and identity. “On a Whim” is a term often heard in the Yukon as to how people made this place their home.
“I came here for a summer job on a whim and yes, 15 years later I’m still here.”
What is it that makes a place a home? Both artists are on the road through the summer and plan to mail small works in progress back and forth, each contributing from where they are in relation to home.
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| Sarah Mucullough and Nicole Bauberger | Sarah explores encaustic on concrete |
James and Bianca are exploring stone as a new medium for Bianca and are developing work not only for the Lineages and Linkages exhibition, but for a possible spot at the Great Northern Art Festival.
I am witnessing more ripples emanating from that stone.
We will be creating a catalogue to be introduced at the opening reception. Be sure to buy one as it will the beginning of a good collection of Yukon Artists as they emerge and develop.
I will continue to write about the different artists and their work together over the months leading to the exhibition. Our next get together as a whole group will be in September when we will have a” show and tell” between the artists and exchange ideas, techniques and experience.
It is wonderful to live in an age where we have instant access to so much information but there is still nothing that compares with the creative energy of a gathering of people, passionate about what they do. Art is about communication, reaching out, passing on. It is about lineage and linking - past, present and future.
October 2010
The Lineages and Linkages artists met again in early October. The Yukon summer seems to suck artists away for a season. When the leaves begin to colour they migrate back to their studios and begin to settle in for the next gallery season.
Time had affected everyone involved in the project .. what's time without change? And I was delighted that the threads of what had begun much earlier in the year still held us committed, curious and creating.
Sheila and Katherine have taken a mutual love of metal and multimedia to create organic forms and have given it a shove! They have worked together forming ideas and exploring different aspects of their chosen media all summer and into the autumn when they were in the Tombstone Mountains creating a larger than life, in situe willow grizzly bear. Keeping their work for the exhibition under wraps for now I know it will reflect a love of wool and metal, weaving and figurative sculpture.
What I have observed within this pairing of artists is a passion and respect for the source of their materials and the process of developing finished work through augmenting, altering and understanding those materials.
Ken Anderson is an artist who's work reflects his commitment to tradition and to the ritual of identifying the source of both materials and the active style he chooses to create with. The desire to honour what has been practiced before him and to make it relevant in a modern life has led him to a sense of discipline and an unwillingness to compromise that is strongly apparent in his work.
Imagine an artist so intently focused taking part in a project like Lineages and Linkages and taking on not one but two mentees. Ken expresses the frustration of time as he realizes that he cannot pass on everything he wants to in a matter of months. How can the idea of finding and limbing the perfect pine,perhaps a generation or more before it is felled and used compete with the convenience of ordering pre cut slabs of wood from outside, dry and ready for carving.
Something about Brian Francis. Excited, delighted to be working with Ken. Has had more access to his mentor as Ken stands in for the resident carver for a few weeks and is clearly more critical of his work. Working with a master on a more one on one basis has created within him a personal challenge to improve his eye, his hand, his understanding of the materials he uses.
After the last full artists meeting Ken and his mentees Brian and Naomi were making plans to go out locally to identify and source wood for their exhibition work.
It is difficult to contact Naomi Crey as she is off in the bush on a trapline but assures us via satellite phone that she is taking the time to carve and to develop her practice in a holistic manner. Family, the land, a journey both internal and external.
Lynn Sofiak had to hit the kiln running so to speak when she got back to her studio practice this fall. Aside from her teaching commitments, Artist in the school and other work for the Yukon Art Society she also had a number of exhibitions including Lineages and Linkages to work towards using previously untried glazing techniques.
The unknown factor in the creation of pottery is always apparent. The final results are only known when the kiln has cooled and one can unload the most recent firing.
Visiting Lynn at her studio when she is away from the distractions all of her other jobs is an experience of intense delight. Listening to her speak of clay bodies, forms and the baffling intricacies of colour and glaze technology while she casually manipulate 20 kilos of wet clay would make anyone want to get their hands muddy.
Linda Thorseth's studio seems more of a personal space for exploration. A quiet place in the basement of her home where she throws and decorates with a room to the side for 2 dimensional work.
If Lynn's focus emanates from a joy of organic form and brilliant colour, Linda tends to move from medium to medium in an attempt to find the right one in which to rest and find meaning.
These artists played with a number of collaborative ideas and themes until they both found a comfortable place in which to learn from one another. Linda could incorporate the tools and knowledge that Lynn had to offer and use them within her own forms. They will be working on separate bodies of work for the exhibition that will be an entirely new experience for those who are familiar with their work.
James Kirby and Bianca Martin
Going to visit James Kirby and Bianca Marin at Jame's studio is almost like walking through a wrinkle in time. It is more like a collection of lairs than a home or a studio each containing stone, bone and metal objects. Books and paintings, a lot of them look ancient.
The studio in contrast is large,well lit and professionally outfitted for carving and sculpting. Bianca is regularly on site working on a number of different pieces. The energy in this studio is apparent in the number of works in progress. Bianca also has a little space for stone carving right across the street from Sundog Carvers Studio where she works regularly. Immersed as she is in such a creative environment Bianca continues to explore and produce fine, thoughtful work.
