cats

PAUSE

| Lynne McIlvride

My 2024 Easter Exhibition

It is my pleasure to present another annual Easter Art Show of my recent work.
March 29, 30 and 31 from 1:00 to 5:00 daily or email for an appointment (LynneMcilvride@icloud.com).
14260 Marsh Hill Road Utica Ontario. I look forward to seeing you!
I am working on a new exciting series of painted basswood CATS. As usual, there will also be older work including the painted relief sculptures dedicated to Ken Welsh. 

Here is a link to a talk I attempted for the Colour Research Society.

These 7 new cats are acrylic paint on hand carved basswood. They are all just slightly smaller than cat-size. I haven’t named or priced them yet but prices will range from $600-$800.

Tradition

| Lynne McIlvride

I don’t have very many markers of time. One of the few is my yearly solo show in my studio  on whatever weekend Easter happens to fall. This year it is March 25,26, and 27. 

  This show started as a way of coping (and perhaps avoiding) difficult family gatherings. More importantly, it has always been a quiet way to celebrate my faith in a way that includes my art. Especially appropriate to Easter, I am training to serve the chalice in the Anglican Church I go to. John, the priest was naming all of the components and for the first time I learned about the piscina, which is a little plate in the corner where any leftover consecrated wine and bread are put and then thrown outside where the wine can soak into the earth and the birds can eat the bread. The part about the birds moved me: the innocence of sparrows snacking on holy communion crumbs. Such small bits of hope.  

 I hope you come to my show. It’s an offering of sorts. There will be small constructed paintings of lively flocks and striped cats, tornado sculptures, linoprints and etchings. Most of these things are for sale: the show itself is a gift. 1-5 each day or email to make an appointment if you would rather do that. This show is in my studio in the tiny village of Utica: 14260 Marsh Hill Road.  

Cat watching birds
 

Prints

| Lynne McIlvride

I have done reduction linoprints for a few years now. I love this method of slowly destroying the linol”eum as more and more is cut away to add more colours. 

small cat linoprint
   
I have recently begun to explore etching and drypoint. For the most part, they are my holiday from colour. Somehow, all that compression and and technique is a mystical experience. I love going to the print and drawing room of the Art Gallery of Ontario to examine Goya etchings in my gloved hands. I am a happy novice.  
small cat etching
small cat etching
 
Both the etching above and the first linoprint are based on the same drawing I did of Twister, my cat, one cold winter day last January.

Here are a couple of dry points: 

cat landing on its feet drypoint
cat landing on its feet drypoint
  
The Bath, Drypoint
The Bath, Drypoint
 
Below is state 2 of an etching called “Sleep” which I should be doing right now. 

Sleep, etching
Sleep, etching
 I am currently selling these prints at the friendly neighbourhood pop-up shop, “Handmade in Uxbridge” behind Blue Heron Books. Good night!

pop-up shop
pop-up shop
 

The tornado that turned into a cat:

| Lynne McIlvride

Sleeping cats
Twister unwinds.

Cats?! It was a cold winter. My studio is a short walk from my house. My little house is easy to heat: the high ceiling in my stFile 2015-05-09, 9 59 57 PMudio resists warmth. I spent most of the winter sidled up to my wood stove. I would look at the chair across from me to see my cat had the same idea. I soon found myself drawing him. It seemed silly at first but my cat is a tabby and as soon as I added colour to his stripes, I saw the connection     between my cat and my tornados.

It was a cold winter.
It was a cold winter.

I drew him sleeping, curled into himself and there was another connection. He was like looking into the top of a tornado. And cats, as everyone knows, are bundles of energy waiting to leap. The more I drew him, the more I sensed he was a resting storm, a dormant tornado with muscles ready to cause havoc. The cat is, in a sense, a personified tornado and  the answer to my tornado problem. A tornado signifies homelessness; a cat, more than anything, signifies home.

More cat paintings here.