My annual Easter exhibition of new work is my favourite show when I open my studio and home to the public. This year I continue with my series of painted low relief carved hands. Keep checking here for images of new work, prices and inspirations.
I am in the middle of a series celebrating my own fidgety hands—and the hands of all of us who make things with our hands, talk with our hands, worry with our hands.
There is a little drawing of me as a young child that a friend of my grandmother’s did. I didn’t know her, she just wanted to practice drawing. I had to stay perfectly still for an eternity in a little wool suit. It was probably 20 minutes. I remember the artist becoming red-faced and frustrated because I wasn’t staying still enough. Especially my hands. I thought she was angry at me which made me more anxious and fidgety. She finally gave up, exasperated.
Perversely, I still have the drawing. As an artist now I look back on it and find the hands the most interesting part.
So that’s part of the inspiration behind this series. The other thing that moved me in this direction was running into a small show of Naoko Matsubara’s wonderful prints of hands at the Art Gallery of Ontario a few months ago. Brilliant!
Below is the price list from The Second Wedge where my work will be showing until February 7.
Please note: #4 and #7 and #10 are now sold.
This will be showing at The Second Wedge, Uxbridge Ontario from December 10 to February 7 with the OPENING on Saturday December 13, 1-4.
The Hands are the stars of the show. Below are good pictures and approximate sizes of the hand series so far.
Hello! I have a limited number of 2026 Calendars!
Large calendars 17” x 11” $30.00 each (pick up only)
AND
Small calendars 11.5” x 8” $25.00 each plus shipping
Interested? Please email me: LynneMcilvride@icloud.com
Available Work:
In case you didn’t hear, we reached and surpassed our kickstarter goal with time to spare! (It ends officially Sunday June 29 at 1:17pm) So…the book is happening! I will keep everyone posted as it progresses. It has been quite an experience so far and I am buoyed up by the warmth and generosity of this community of the land and of the heart that has embraced the idea of a book about the art and place of Judith and Viktor Tinkl. Now I pass the baton on to Firefly Books! I can’t think of a better match!
A few days ago I was talking to Judith Tinkl and she spoke the term “tactile intelligence” with familiar reverence. There is an intelligence based on physical skills: the way a potter throws a pot, the way a woodcarver feels the grain—to get closer to the point— the way Judith cuts cloth apart and knows with her hands how it will be sewn back together; the way Viktor holds a shoe and knows it will become a bird.
Things are different because of Viktor and Judith. In spite of their modesty, they have changed the artistic landscape. The air is easier to breathe.
As one of many local artists breathing easier, this gift is one of the reasons I found myself starting a kickstarter to raise funds so Firefly Books could publish a book about Judith Tinkl and Viktor Tinkl. A book—that tactile object that doesn’t have to end because it stays in your hand for as long as you like. A book is an interactive thing. You can smell it, hear the pages turning, your eyes will be delighted. Of course you also read it—and in a different way than you are reading this: the tactile quality enables us to think better, store knowledge and remember.
Below is Viktor talking and Judith writing about their work.
Judith writing:
Always a quilt maker, I did not always know it. Like many aspiring artists of my generation I experienced all the influences and indoctrination of an early 60s art education. After the birth of a child, sunk in cosy domesticity, I accidentally stumbled upon quilt making. A habitual sewer, I was attracted to fabrics and the comfort and sensual pleasure they gave. Gradually quilt making, initially a stopgap activity, took over.
For some obscure and possibly perverse reason, cutting large pieces of fabric into smaller pieces and then assembling these smaller pieces into a larger piece in an endless cycle of destruction and reconstruction suits me. Economy and function play a large part in quilt making and these resonate with deep conservation instincts.
Quiltmaking is a contemplative activity. Many hours of manual labour set the mind free to wander. There is time for a very intimate and intense dialogue between the materials and designs as work evolves. I feel connected to the farm woman who, one hundred years ago, made beautiful quilts out of discarded clothing to keep her family warm in winter. I feel connected to artists in North America and Europe who are part of the revival and development of contemporary quilt making. I feel part of the unfolding of contemporary art at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st, although perhaps I am treading a side path rather than the main road. Like a true child of the sixties, I feel most comfortable with non-objective abstract visual ideas. Having lived through one or two cycles and having attained a certain maturity, I have the self-knowledge and confidence to know what I should be doing no matter what else is happening all around. Sometimes I am in step, sometimes not.
What motivates me is a fascination with the phenomena of light and colour and the illusions achieved by juxtapositions of colours. Colour is always interactive and startling results occur when these interactions are pushed to the limit. We see in very specific ways which allows for lots of room to play.
Equally motivating is the phenomenon of a pattern. The simplest structures, on inspection, can generate immensely complicated results. These structures can be found in natural structures and systems, in cultures around the world and are studied by mathematicians and scientists. I have explored various approaches to geometric patterning over the years: Roger Penrose’s non-periodic pentagonal structures as the basis for the installation Piece by Piece and The Golden Triangle, a magic shape related to the Golden Section that is used in my most recent work.
And so…back to the kickstarter. We need about $2000 more dollars as I write this. We are now just past the $23,000 mark. By the time you read this, there will only be 11 days left to sponsor the book. If you have already pledged, I thank you. If you haven’t pledged yet and can do so, I hope you will do it soon so I can stop staring hopefully at my phone.
Press the link below to land on the kickstarter page and help sponsor a beautiful and important book:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tinklbook/viktor-tinkl-judith-tinkl-art-and-place
My brother the IT Guy, put together this step by step guide for making a pledge on kickstarter. Thanks Andrew! Click on the “Press for help” button below for a guide to make a pledge using your iphone. It might look a bit different on your computer screen.
Press the pink button to go to the Tinkl Book kickstarter.
There should be a book about Viktor and Judith Tinkl. Their soaring talent as artists and their astounding yet unpretentious art environment has been a precious gift to me personally as part of their huge community of friends, artists, admirers and fans.
Viktor’s sculpture and Judith’s textiles deserve to be properly celebrated and recorded. A book wasn’t their idea. A couple of us approached them with a hybrid model of publishing in which a community sponsors a book which a publisher is interested in publishing but thinks might be too financially risky in this unpredictable world.
You and I and supporters and lovers of Judith and Viktor’s work are that sponsor. I’ll call us “Friends of the Tinkls” for now. Firefly Books would be the publisher and distributor. My job is to raise $40,000 to sponsor the book. This would pay the author, photographer, designer, printing etc.$15,000 has already been raised so I am about to start a kickstarter page for the remaining $25,000.
Here’s a fun video about the Tinkl Book project.
The Kickstarter is now launched!! Click here to be redirected to page.
The Kickstarter is now launched!! Click here to be redirected to page.
(You can also donate directly to lynnemcilvride@gmail.com if you are having technical difficulties)
Here is an update. Our kickstarter is doing quite well but still needs your help. We are up to over $17,000. We need to at least reach our $25,000 goal to succeed. There is still time make a pledge. You can only donate once, but you can raise your donation until the kickstarter ends in 26 days.
Good news: our kickstarter page won the coveted “Project We Love” badge.
Strange times we’re in. I’m drawn to wings— of birds, of angels. Calling on goodness, compassion, humility, generosity. Below is a partial price list of my newest work.
Lynne.Mcilvride.Art 