My Current Gallery Show - Handmade Books and Prints

Secrets Between the Covers
Feb 3rd to Feb 17th Lee Matasi Gallery (Extended to March 3rd, 2009)
Ottawa School of Art
35 George Street in the ByWard Market


Currently I have a show of the work I made during my apprenticeship with Britt Quinlan at the Ottawa School of Art from September to December 2008. I focused on the topic of secrets and created a series of books to illustrate one secret in each book. I find the process of creating a handmade book completely satisfying. Within this art form you can include any art-making process you need to get your story across. It is endless.

As for my video skills, well I forgot that moving pictures are not still pictures and when I turned my camera so the view was vertical the image didn't follow.
D'oh!
So please forgive me this error and consider it intentional (in the best art-making sense of that word).

Day Olds - Dec 28 2007 - The Queen Bee

I started cleaning my place today. I always find doing this very overwhelming and I never stick with it long enough to make a real change.
I hope that's different this time, time will tell, but the best part is finding things you forgot about. This piece falls in that category.

Oh my Queen Bee. She's all that and a bag of chips.

She measures an impressive 2 1/2 feet tall x about 2 feet wide. She's made of masonite that I cut freehand with a bandsaw. I then gessoed the masonite and painted it with acrylics and glued it together with wood glue and used a lot of small clamps to keep her pieces in place. Her shoes, purse, crown, antennae and facial features are all made with friendly plastic.

Day Olds- Sept 12 '07- Viking Mirror

Here's another rare full-length wall mirror. The viking lady is masonite cut with a band saw, embellished with friendly plastic, and gessoed first, then painted with acrylic paint. The edges, which you can't see, were sanded and painted black. The same goes for the bird and the background is pine, gessoed and painted with acrylics. The jagged edges were cut on a band saw too. The glass mirror was glued to the background. A nice piece. I hope the owner loves it.

Day Olds - Sept 11 '07- Big Angel Mirror

I made this mirror a few years ago and brought it to Canada's largest Art and Craft Christmas Show, One of a Kind in Toronto. If you've never been, you should go and see it. 700+ artisans. 11 days long. And if you're thinking of applying, that's 11 days of mostly 11 hour days.
Did I tell you it's gruelling?
By the second Saturday, if you check in with couples, you'll hear that they've had a fight.
It's hard, but it can be worth it.
Sometimes.
Like I said before, it's a gamble to do shows.

This mirror was a full size wall mirror attached to a wooden background that I painted. I created the figures out of masonite and painted them and used friendly plastic to embellish them and to add interesting texture and detail. I liked doing the big mirrors but they are really impractical to haul from show to show. The potential for the glass to get scratched is really high and it can't be replaced on a piece like this. The mirror's glued to the wood. So I haven't made them since. And I don't think I'll change my mind about that.