Lynne’s Easter show 2023

March 16, 2023March 16, 2023 | Lynne McIlvride

My show this year will be different in some ways. It is still a celebration of Easter. It still showcases what I have been working on in the last year. It continues to be an open invitation to new people and old friends. Like other years, it’s an art show and sale, though there will be a number of pieces I’m not ready to sell. The bulk of my new work is based on sketches I drew of Ken in the last few months of his life. I dedicate this show to Kenneth Welsh, who was always, always, always wildly enthusiastic about my work; respectful of my vocation and encouraging to me. So for those who knew Ken, this could act as a memorial. Being sensitive to this (and the possible dregs of covid) I decided to add a few more days when you can email me and make an appointment instead of braving a possible crowd (she wrote hopefully). Normal hours are 1:00-5:00 Friday April 7, Saturday April 8 and Sunday April 9 but appointments can be made for anytime between April 5 and April 10. Email me and we’ll figure something out. Come alone or bring your own crowd.

Below is a partial list of works in the show. There is much more but this is the new work. This list is a work in progress so please keep checking in! Prices and lack of them, subject to change.

Ken Sleeping 
3' x 1'
2022
acrylic on hand carved basswood, cufflink

In God's Pocket 
3' x 1'  
2022
acrylic on hand carved basswood

I will lie by your side like the Sunday roast
3' x 1' 
2022 
acrylic on hand carved basswood

What folly I commit, I dedicate to you.
4' x 2'
2023
acrylic on hand carved basswood 
$8000.00

Wrestling with the Resurrection
2022
4' x 4'
acrylic and gold leaf on plywood and hand carved basswood
sold

This piece was originally done for Crossings Toronto, a contemporary stations of the cross. The following is my artist's statement about the piece:

Wrestling with the Resurrection
I wanted to celebrate the resurrection of Christ as the joyous exclamation point at the end of a difficult and sombre journey. I still want that. But in creating this piece, I also want to honour the indigenous children who died victims of residential schools run by segments of the Christian church. I am a Christian settler, haunted by their voices and wrestling with the resurrection. Can this all come together in one piece of art? I’m not sure. In the light of the long ignored evils of the residential schools, looking at the 'Calls to Action' 59-61 especially; can the cancer of colonialism be rooted out of the Christian body? Dare we hope? Dare we celebrate? Can we join The Creator in hearing the cries of these children?

reduction linoprints, monoprints, linoprints with drawing and painting added and collages
2023
$100.00 to $200.00 unframed

King Lear
2022
1' x 1' x 1"
acrylic on hand carved basswood

Ken and Angie
2022
1' x 1' x 1"
acrylic on hand carved basswood

Uxbridge Studio Tour 2020

September 1, 2020January 10, 2021 | Lynne McIlvride

Hello!! Time to make an appointment to see my work on the Uxbridge Studio Tour weekend, Sept 19-20. Email me as soon as you know when you would like to come, how long you would like to stay (15 to 50 minutes) and how many are in your party. Here is the Uxbridge Studio Tour webiste. There are over 40 wonderful local artists: some will be participating only virtually and the rest by appointment. Masks and distancing inside, social distancing outside. See my other post, “How to Visit an Artist”.

LynneMcilvride@icloud.com

416 937-2829 text only please

14260 Marsh Hill Road

Port Perry, ON L9L 1Z2

Canada

And here is a gallery of my new work.

Handmade in Uxbridge

December 4, 2019December 11, 2019 | Lynne McIlvride

I have been doing some slightly smaller work for a pop-up show December 12-22 behind Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge Ontario. Sizes and prices will be published soon. Questions?Email LynneMcilvride@icloud.com. Opening reception December 14, 1-4 with special guest KEN WELSH entertaining the crowd. This is the only kind of shopping experience I can handle! Featuring several local artists. See hours below.

Thursday December 12, 10-8
Friday December 13, 10-8
Saturday December 14, 10-4
Sunday December 15, 11-5
Monday December 16, 10-6
Tuesday December 17, 10-6
Wednesday December 18, 10-8
thursday December 19, 9-8
Friday December 20, 9-9
Saturday December 21, 9-7
Sunday December 22, 9-6

handmade-2019-price-list.pages_Download

Welcome to my World!

August 31, 2019August 31, 2019 | Lynne McIlvride

Hello. I have been continuing my theme of “Epiphanies” which I will be happy to show you at The Uxbridge Studio Tour, September 14 and 15. More beadwork, more woodcarving, more colour riots. Francis Muscat was in my studio the other day and and described the series as Psychadelic Baroque.

This last one is a video. Click to see on instagram. All work is handcarved basswood with inlaid glass beadwork and acrylic paint. Oil paint is added to some and many have gold leaf applied. Here is a LINK to the Uxbridge Studio Tour Brochure. I will have extras you can pick up at my studio. I am Site 24: last but not least!! My guest artist is magnificent ceramic artist, Ann Cummings.

Drive to Port Perry Easter Weekend!

March 28, 2018March 28, 2018 | Lynne McIlvride

Another Easter Coming

February 28, 2018February 28, 2018 | Lynne McIlvride

The Commission

Hello. I haven’t written anything for a year. I almost forget how. First of all I am thrilled to have finished the first of two paintings for niches at ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church’ Toronto. I was honoured when Fr. Dan Donovan, priest and Toronto art collector since the 1950’s, asked me to come up with something to fit into the two niches at the church. If you know me at all, you will know that I do not normally do commissions. I find it very difficult. However I embraced the challenge and promptly caught mono so I was out of commission in both senses of the phrase for the rest of the summer. I finally finished and installed the first piece a month ago. The frame which I had great fun carving was made by carpenter, Brent Orenstein. The church is open to visitors if anybody would like to see this piece.

And here is a movie I took while the organist was rehearsing during installation. It isn’t great as far as movies go but it’s kind of interesting.

The Trip to Salvation Mountain

Now you might see a bit of a theme here. Something old is new again. Something interesting is brewing. After the commission was done I had the chance to go on a quick trip to Long Beach California. I quickly sourced local Outsider artists’ environments since that seems to be what holds my interest lately. I had the chance to see Watt’s Towers and Salvation Mountain. Now Watt’s Towers was wonderful: I loved it. But Salvation Mountain with its unabashed bible verses and idealism spoke to me in a whole different way. Here’s Watts Towers first.

And now here is Salvation Mountain in Slab City. Visit if you can. Stay at Cherry and Abel’s Air BNB.

And Now More Words: Revisiting the Bible

Yes my Easter Show is coming up but before it does, I am taking part in another wonderful event. Actor Ken Welsh is doing a live reading of the entire book of St. Mark at the local Anglican church in Uxbridge. He was kind enough to ask me if I wanted to have a few paintings around the church while he performs. Aside from the cross (seen below) that the church commissioned me to do several years ago, I will have two or three new works as a preview of my Easter show and I am also borrowing back ten or so older biblical paintings from local people. Victoria Joannou, violinist, will also be playing. This is a great opportunity to see Ken live. I saw him do this at Soulpepper theatre in Toronto a couple of years ago and it amazed me. Actually it was a sold-out weekday matinee and I went alone and sat beside a woman I didn’t know. I made conversation by saying I was surprised the theatre was so full on a wednesday afternoon. She looked at me as if I had an IQ of about 37 and said slowly and emphatically “well….. it’s Ken Welsh!” So there you go.

KenCrossSmall — Actor Ken Welsh reads book of Mark under my commissioned cross

And Finally My Easter Show

This one is called Postcard from Salvation Mountain. What can I say but I hope you will come. Or should I say “wish you were here”? I hope to open my house this year as well as my studio. It is slowly becoming a piece of art in itself. Give me 20 more years….

Summer 2017!!!!

April 25, 2017April 25, 2017 | Lynne McIlvride

I know it isn’t summer yet but I am looking forward to it. I started Spring off with my yearly Easter show and coming up very soon will be the Lake Scugog Studio Tour: May 6 and 7.

This is new for me. I am hoping it will give those a chance who missed my Easter show to see my latest work and enjoy spring in Utica.

I will be spending the summer on more boats, angels and the Tree of Life. All here in Utica. There is an exciting commission in the works which might be interesting to document as it progresses. And remind me (whoever you are) to tell you about Billy Parker. I need to write about him ASAP. (Speaking of angels.) Here are a few pics of new work:

Keep your eyes open for my subtle new street number sign when you come by:

Rare Birds and Strange Bedfellows

Image | January 23, 2017February 13, 2017 | Lynne McIlvride

I have been working like a maniac and eating sardines like there’s no tomorrow. WHY?

The following is my artist’s statement:

I know the following things laid side by side are responsible for this fleet of boats/altars/windows.

A young man casually pulls out his folding fan on a stifling train ride between Rome and Naples.

Tiny blue fishing boats in earnest blues and gothic arches moored at a Maltese wharf look like altars–windows to another world. Walls of ornate glass boxed reliquaries in a lonely Sicilian monastery contain beautified bits of saints. My own mementos are burned on the bonfire of an ex.

Obviously I was traveling recently. And when traveling, one tends to use whatever material is at hand for art-making and I guess I ate more than my share of canned fish. The tins make wonderful frames and with their allusions to things silvery and densely packed, they have since become natural containers for my art. These boats are packages of valuable stuff saved, compressed; precious and endangered things folded in on themselves and packed like sardines. They allude to survival by migration, physical and spiritual journeys, they can be seen as symbols of the Church, they are scoopfuls of water baled out of a larger boat, they are bottled messages thrown out to sea. They are short prayers, poetic as packed suitcases. They are reliquaries. In a sense they are the result of an artist residency I took part in on that same trip near Naples Italy. When I returned home, I folded the drawings I did during that month into tiny accordions until they fit into sardine cans. Beside them are folded watercolour paintings and linoleum prints, remnants of recipes. The glass boat shape goes on last and encapsulates these strange bedfellows.

It is my pleasure to share this show at the David Kaye Gallery with my good friend, neighbour and extraordinary ceramic artist, Ann Cummings:

ANN CUMMINGS: “This body of new work was inspired by my admiration of an 18th century Derby porcelain that I saw at the Gardiner Museum, Toronto and then subsequently many more pieces at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England. The Derby works, to my mind, are delightfully charming and rather frivolous. I felt a kinship with those works and they proved to be a vehicle for the direction that I was compelled to follow.
My works are imagined landscapes. They represent both my joy and delight in nature and also my sorrow, grief and fear for the ongoing destruction of our environment. These are assemblages of chaos and a warning to take care of the land. My sculptural works are also an homage to my dearly departed husband and ultimately to the landscape that we found together where we loved and lived.
I feel there is a strange beauty all around me and yet conversely there is uncertainty and a disarray of the natural landscape with the possibility of its demise. This dichotomy of nature and my surrounding landscape are two opposing sides of beauty and wonder, as well as fear and destruction, that all makes for strange bedfellows.”

Taking wing

October 23, 2016November 6, 2016 | Lynne McIlvride

Oh my goodness, what a trip! I spent this summer making art at an artist residency in Italy and looking at art and architecture in London, Malta, Sicily and Naples. I am currently in a two-person show in Toronto in which I begin to process everything. My part of the show is called “taking wing”. Below are some of my images from the show, in invitation and my artist statement. The opening is this Thursday November 10, 2016. Join us!

Neapolitan Traveling Mercy

Traveling Mercy: Palermo

Fishing Boat (Malta)

San Michele in San Potito

Traveling Mercy: Sicily

Traveling Mercy: Caltagirone

TAKING WING

I did take wing recently. Most of the small work here is the initial unpacking of my summer’s trip to southern Italy and Malta (bracketed coming and going by the Sainsbury wing in London’s National Gallery).

I was awestruck, of course by the ‘angels in the architecture’: an intimate polychromed sculpture of San Michele the Archangel in a private chapel in San Potito; Caravaggio’s pigeon-winged angels in Naples; the cherubim and seraphim holding up the corners of the cathedral in Monreale. There were marvellous and exquisite wings everywhere–sometimes real ones. In some windy towns like Caltagirone, white feathers flew constantly like snow. I don’t know why.

I call my winged pieces ‘traveling mercies’. That phrase is stolen and only slightly misused. Thirty years ago in the local Baptist church, men in terrible brown suits bellowed prayers thanking special speakers for coming and asking God to grant them ‘traveling mercies’ (protection on their journey home). It was an eye-roller even then and I like to reimagine ‘traveling mercies’ as actual creatures: guardian angels on the road. I certainly met some and am thankful.

Another way of taking wing is by boat. I was taken by a series of little blue docked fishing boats in Malta. Looking from the boardwalk above they were dreamy altars or shuttered windows as well as boats obviously (Dghajsa in Maltese). They inspired my sardine can boats, packed accordion style with important art, mysterious messages and other supplies. More than you’ll ever need. More than you can ask or imagine.

Lynne McIlvride: Storm Seller

After re-reading my artist’s statement, I am reminded that there is so much more to process that deeply moved me and inspired me… I’ve barely scratched the surface. Aside from the wondrous beauty I found in the art and architecture, there were very wonderful and helpful people in each part of my journey. These meetings and their significance will slowly seep into my artwork. Regine in Malta, Phyllis in Palermo, Angelica & Gilda in Caltagirone, Anna in San Potito. There are many more and unless they read this, only I know their significance. Anyway, Here are some random wonders.