Vessels: having fun making them and adding more

 I am having a great time making vessels...It seems every few days a new one arises. I am experimenting with different elements and colours and seeing what I get...things are getting more predictable.
Wondering what one does with a vessel, I spied my favourtie girl hanging in the corner of my studio.
She seemed to fit in perfectly.

Abstract Paintings UBCO BFA Grad Art Show

The Right Path is a Journey 4'x6'

Depth 40"x40"

The show opened on Tuesday and I sold these two paintings on the first day....It was so exciting. The larger painting is a multi-layered abstract with a felt ball attached to it. The second painting is also an abstract with multiple layers of colour and texture. I called it Depth to compliment its counter part which was Surface.I was thrilled to pass them on to someone who will enjoy them and hang them in their home.

The Stories we Tell

My Installation piece for my 4th year BFA show is about the stories women tell when they gather to knit, crochet or whatever. If you would like to share a story with me....I would love to hear it.

 Contact me at coloursparks@gmail.com 

or check out my website for samples.
http://judithmueller.weebly.com/stories.html

Mid Term Critique

 Well, its almost reading break and my mid term critique is behind me. It was well worth while cleaning up my studio and using it as a practice installation space. Its a great way to try all kinds of different ways of installing my pieces. I had attached my heads to the wall with plastic tubing and wasn't really convinced it was the right way. I had them at different lengths but settled on the  shorter length as that way they didn't hang as much.
As I was waiting for my critique time, I realized that something was missing....the metal. My artist statement is about the combination of wool and metal and I was forgetting the metal. So off I went to the metal shop and welded some pieces together and added them to the installation. somehow, for me it was an ah ha moment where I realized that the metal adds an interesting effect to the space. It wasmuch too flat just having the heads attached to the wall.
Anyway, I hung up my balls....I love my balls, and as you look at the heads through the walls, I feel I am getting the elements I want together. The audio is on, but needs work...its the third

 component. It allows the heads to speak....but the not so fast...they need more space
I now realize that there is work to be done and my installation won't completely gel till I have my walls up in the sculpture studio. So reading break is almost here and you will find me in my studio making heads.

What Colour Are You?

Yesterday, I was blue and red, You were green and yellow, She was pink and purple, He was brown and green, They were black and red.

Today, I am pink and purple, You are red and blue, She is yellow and blue, He is red and pink, They are brown and orange.

Tomorrow, I will be yellow and orange, You will be brown and pink, She will be black and green, He will be blue and yellow, and They will be white and pink.

What colour are you?

People, though they may look different and believe different things are all human beings made of flesh and soul and spirit. The idea that your life does not affect mine is for me an illusion and construe of society to allow bad things to happen to justify the concept of the greater good. I believe that even though you live in a far away country and I have no visible relationship to you...your life affects mine in the matrix of mankind. The reality that you live will change the reality that I live in and vice versa.

Art on the Line 2012

Art on the Line is a fundraiser for the UBCO Visual Course Union to help pay for the 4th year show for the graduating  visual arts students. With the purchase of a ticket, cost $175, you have the opportunity to go home with 1 piece of contemporary art. Students from UBCO and members of the art community donate works to this juried event. Once you arrive and select your favourtie pieces, you go into the auditorium where the ticket numbers are selected at random and when your number comes up you can pick the piece that is next on your list. My piece "Abstract in White", was picked by the 25th ticket and now is at home in someone's house.  I hope they enjoy it

Process Painting and 4th Year

Mark Rothko

In 4th year painting, one of our assignments is to do 3 paintings 40"x40". We are to research 3 artists, one of whose art we have seen live in person, and combine these 3 styles into our own painting. I chose Mark Rothko, Marc Chagall and Michael Adamson, a Canadian born Toronto Artist whose work I saw a SOPA Art Gallery here in Kelowna. We also have to do 'drawings' and I have decided to do my on 9"x9"pieces of raw canvas, old paintings cut up, water colour paper, old water colour paintings....so much stuff hanging around the house that I don't like so I might as well recycle it. So today is the beginning of the process and I began with Rothko. I may never get to Chagall's images...but maybe his colours or his feel or probably his fiddler which to me will always be symbolic of the jewish faith in which I was raised. They create a similar feeling as do the Basler Waggis that for me are a symbol of  the Basler tradition

Michael Adamson  All the way to California

Marc Chagall Fiddler on the Roof

If I Told You My Story...Would You Listen? 4th Year Show

 My pieces are now in the Fina Gallery at UBCO as part of the 4th year graduating class. The piece with the steel sculpture and felt balls is called What Colour Are You? and the piece with the felted heads is called If I Told You My Story Would You Listen. 
What is not visible hear in the picture is that one of the heads has a speaker in it and it repeatedly asks the same questions...trying to call attention to the viewer. The colourful ball sculpture has a motor in the middle which stirs the balls.

What Colour Are You?

Welded Steel and Wool Fleece

My work has dealt with the exploration of combining wool and steel and trying to find a balance between the two. I have concluded that the steel often ends up being a support or container for the wool. The idea that the steel could be construed as masculine and the wool as female was my original starting point. I felt the need to defend the idea that working in wool and using it as a sculpture tool is not to be designated as craft but serious art. In the end I was lead to the conclusion of “who cares”. The steel is stronger and holds the wool and that’s okay....just as the wool is soft and colourful and allows the steel to shine.

This piece is my attempt to display a visual reference for the oneness of mankind. People, though they may look different and believe different things are all human beings made of flesh and soul and spirit.

The idea that your life does not affect mine is for me an illusion and construe of society to allow bad things to happen in the name of the greater good. I believe that even though you live in a far away country and I have no visible relationship to you...your life affects mine in the matrix of mankind. The reality that you live in will change the reality that I live in and vice versa

If I Told You My Story...Would You Listen?

Wool Fleece and Media

This installation piece is the beginning of a larger piece that will explore the stories we tell about the lives we live. The faces are the untold stories of women as they meet and interrelate with one another. I want the viewer to listen to the stories that are told but I also want the viewer to imagine and hear the story themselves by looking at the faces and listening to what they hear.

My Studio

It is really fun to finally have a studio...I can leave my mess and no one can complain because its my space. This picture is at the beginning before I got all my stuff into it. I have collected a fair amount of metal and have eased out into the middle space. Avery...my visa a vie studio partner doesn't mind as she has moved out and we meet in the middle.
My faces are coming along...I have quite a few more now and intend to have alot by April...watch for pictures from the 4th year mid term show

Felting Workshop with Jorie

I went to a felting workshop with Jorie Johnson in Vancouver this past weekend. It was fun to take an early morning flight out of Kelowna .....you sure know you live in a small place when you meet 2 people you know at the airport at 5:15 a.m.

I learned alot...especially on how to be more careful with my initial setting up. It sometimes is easier to take the time in the beginning than spend time fixing your mistakes. I learned some new techniques and I learned how other people teach felting and how the equipment you use is a sure sign on where you learned to felt. My teacher, Franziska, learned in Sweden...so bubble wrap and all that rolling is knew to me. Though I understand that my felting board is not good for everything I sure wouldn't part with it.

Sculpture and Hats

I am still fascinated by faces sculptured in wool. I really have no desire to make them look like someone or some character, I prefer to leave them vague so that the viewer can do the interpreting. I want the faces to invoke in the viewer an idea of what this face is about...the stories behind the face. As I begin my 4th year project, I find myself enjoying the vagueness of what these faces could be or what stories they will tell. As I finished this blue hat...a combo of my stash...think I will make more for Fabulous Finds...I put it on my face to photograph and all of a sudden the story was there. My challenge is how to get this face to talk....though Alek, my professor, has given me some ideas...I don't know if I'll get there this fall.

Painting was Awesome

It was a great year for painting. When I began the year I was incredibly insecure and unsure of myself. Through the direction of my professor Shawn and my great classmates, I learned so much and progressed and development x fold. It was fun to work in the studio, except, of course, for the terrible mess in there.
Shawn helped me find architecture in my abstract paintings and this procedure helped immensely in my narrative painting. It isn't that easy to spend weeks on a painting only to be told to edit 80% of it out. The first time is a little painful, but you get used to it and the paintings improve. Of the six that I did since January, a few still need to be edited, but, hey, that's what the summers for.