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.

An amazing Maltese fireworks video!

Chagall window, Tudeley, England

Yayoi Kusama

Co-cathedral, Valetta, Malta

Francesco Clemente Museo Madre, Naples

Museo di Capodimonte, Napoli

Caltagirone Reliquary

Maltese fishing boat

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There are many more images and explanations on my Facebook page.

About

April 9, 2016 | Lynne McIlvride

An incomplete library of the woodworkings of Brent Orenstein, Toronto carpenter

Source: About

Tradition

March 10, 2016April 2, 2016 | 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.

Prints

December 11, 2015 | 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.

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.

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:

Below is state 2 of an etching called “Sleep” which I should be doing right now.

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

The Storm is almost Past

June 21, 2015 | Lynne McIlvride

Here are some panoramic shots I took on the second last day of my show in the Robert McLaughlin Gallery A. Show ends Sunday June 21st at 4:00. I am sorry to see it end but am looking forward to being surrounded by my work again.

She Lands on her Feet

May 23, 2015June 12, 2015 | Lynne McIlvride

I am not in control of this creative process. Not really. I seem to be coming to a comical conclusion to the tornado tragedy. My constructed paintings of cats are no longer sleeping, but catapulted. The cat falls headfirst, fighting against the gravity of the situation but if it twists a certain way, it will land on its feet. The evolution of a metaphor appears to be inevitable in hindsight and totally unexpected in real time.

2015-05-21 22.48.42 — Stage 2: knowing up from down

In Hounds of Love, Kate Bush sang, “…take my shoes off /and throw them in the lake/ and I’ll be two steps on the water.” Painting cats landing on their feet is an act of faith, among other things. Spinning in a tornado, I am not always convinced that I will land on my feet but I will go ahead and trust God and trust the creative process and my inner voice and make these crazy images and surely it’s like throwing my shoes on the water: not a shoe-in but a step in the right direction.

Lynne McIlvride

May 3, 2015June 12, 2015 | Lynne McIlvride

Who am I and how did I get here? I have asked myself that question many times in the last two years. My name is Lynne Mcilvride. I have been an artist ever since I remember. I find speaking awkward: my first language is colour. (It’s a good line that has served me well.) A little background to explain tornados and cats: I have a new studio. No, let me back up. I had an old studio in a farmhouse and an old marriage in that same house. I was happy there until I was dumped like a dog out of a moving vehicle. I grieved. I was kept sane by my friends, my faith and my art. For those of you who have followed my work, you will not be surprised by what happened next: I kept painting using new metaphors. My art has always been personal, autobiographical, symbolic, expressive. A tornado soon appeared in a dream and it started a huge series that has not completely spun out. Here is my artist statement I have reused a few times:

Spin

Weather is such a powerful metaphor for human emotion. And that writhing weather monster, the tornado, is a particularly apt way of describing the trauma, the fury, the intensity of loss. It’s hard not to take a tornado personally: it gets to the point by narrowing down and strikes a specific spot. It comes out of the blue. We don’t know what hit us. We are caught in a whirlwind of emotion. Everything is up in the air. There is no emergency plan for these twists of fate.

To put a positive spin on it, a tornado (that snaking shape-shifter) is just energy. It makes a long-winded metaphor that lasts and lasts because it wrecks and then absorbs whatever it touches down on. What starts out as an emblem of emotional devastation contorts into an expression of fury and then is reborn as a metaphor for unstoppable creativity, play, and passion. Like the flowering cross, can it become a cornucopia? Blooming tornados! Elijah goes to heaven, Dorothy goes to Oz, one thing for certain is we are pulled out of our orbit and dropped in a different place, undone.