Bonnie Baker Studio

Traditions & Innovation

Bonnie Baker — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 03:43:09 +0000

An exhibit of prints from two print shops in South West Nova invites the viewer to think about print-making as an evolving art form.
Tradition & Innovation is running from January 5 thru February 26 2012 in the Community Room of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Western Branch, Yarmouth Nova Scotia. Opening reception was held Saturday, January 7.

More than two dozen printmakers from La Manivelle in Church Point and Th’YARC Print Shop in Yarmouth contributed works including Cecil Day, Ruth Rideout, Denise Comeau, myself and others who have worked at one or both of the studios over the past decade.

The title ‘Tradition & Innovation’ describes the way in which the evolution and discovery of new methods of creating printed images are being used alongside traditional print-making techniques in the two shops. Over the course of the two-month exhibit, workshops tied to the techniques of etching, linocut, watercolour and trace monoprint will be given by Cecil Day, Virginia Stoddard, Flora Doehler and myself.

Putting your best foot forward

Bonnie Baker — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:48:31 +0000

Sometimes artists welcome the chance to step outside of our normal practice and try a new approach or medium. For the exhibit, The Sounds of the Siren, recognizing the 200th anniversary of the local volunteer fire department, fellow artist Wayne Boucher and myself collaborated on two large trace monoprints. Using a length of old fire hose as the plate, we inked, printed, then over printed six 9 ft long vinyl curtain blinds over the course of 3 days. For a press, we used the weight of our bodies and fancy footwork.

Firefighters and their family filled the opening of the exhibit held at a local gallery in November 2011. Ironically, halfway through the opening speeches, the fire hall siren wailed clearing the room of the very people we were honouring.

click on thumbnails to enlarge images.

FEED NOVA SCOTIA Art Auction

Bonnie Baker — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:19:19 +0000

Hosta flower charcoal and pastel on paper, 22" x 18" 2010

Stay home, drink wine, buy art and do good. Grand Pre Winery in Grand Pre, Nova Scotia with the help of 9 NS artists are supporting FEED NOVA SCOTIA through an online art auction. You can view the works to be auctioned off at www.grandprewines.ns.ca/winery/charity-auction/.

You have until midnight October 7^th to bid on your favourite pieces. My drawing of a hosta flower is one of 10 pieces offered. Other artists contributing are Wayne Boucher, Barbara page, Ernest Cadegan, Judith Liedl, Jean Leung, Marilyn Kellough, Ron Hayes, and Twila Robar-DeCoste. Did I mentioned that this is one gala event you can attend in your pj’s ?

Under the sun

Bonnie Baker — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 23:08:22 +0000

Dan Welden, master printmaker and innovator of the solar plate method spent the day at La Manivelle Print Shop teaching a small group of artists the very basics of solar plate printmaking. Accompanied by Holly Maiz, photographer, facilitator, wife and all in one support system for Dan and the participants. I am not usually one to gush but this was one workshop that curled my toes and tickled the primitive part of the creative process in me. Dan and Holly took the learning experience beyond process to focus us on pure printmaking and the integrity of the image.

Until the snow flies I will be spending a couple of days each week at La Manivelle concentrating on printmaking and developing a new series of images loosely connected to falling from grace and facing our regrets. Thank you Flora Doehler for the documenting the day and providing photos.

Click on image to enlarge.

Queen Screen

Bonnie Baker — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:22:18 +0000

In May, I collaborated with an abstract painter Wayne Boucherand a blacksmith Brad Hall to design and make a 7ft high by 12 ft wide stage backdrop for a series of theatrical performances marking the 300th anniversary of the naming of Annapolis Royal after Queen Anne (1710), the last queen of England, Scotland and France. It was a commission by the local Arts Council, ARCAC. The backdrop needed to be portable, flexible in size, reflect the cultural heritage of the region and artistic enough to be sold after the summer celebrations.

In designing the screen, we decided to give homage to the three founding cultures of the region, the Mi’kmaq, French and English, by incorporating motifs of sweet grass, yellow Acadian stars and Queen Anne’s coat of arms. And just because I like the plant, the wild carrot known as Queen Anne’s Lace to represent the diaspora of the new world.

New series of drawings Lachesis’s measure

Bonnie Baker — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:08:12 +0000

My work is sometimes based upon making observational drawings of mundane objects. I draw the same subject repeatedly, experimenting with different ways of highlighting or shifting the bond between object in real life and its rendered likeness.

Even before completing the binding installations of 2009, I was collecting fragments of knotted rope washed up on the Bay of Fundy beaches to sketch. Through making study after study of rope remnants of rope, they transformed from something humble and structurally uncomplicated into entities more carnal and primitive devoid of function and purpose.

The drawings, I am working for this new series are largely executed in charcoal /graphite/acrylic on translucent paper (mylar or Ultra UV). They are expressive work, in tones of greys, black, white, with at times, small caresses of colour expressing a palpable quality of tactile sensuality. The pieces are larger than life depicting macroscopic views of knots and cordage. In rendering the knots oversize, they embody both a source of tension and intimacy.

The tentative title, Lachesis’s Measure refers to the three fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Lachesis, as the fate that measures the length of life given, also determines one’s destiny.

Everything you are reading, I have said before

Bonnie Baker — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:28:48 +0000

One corridor= two drawings = 22 inches by 18 feet

Everything you are reading, I have said before is a new exhibit of drawings based upon the work from an earlier exhibit binding in which I bound a room with drawings of rope.

Contiguous drawings of knotted rope run the length of facing walls in a corridor through which people pass. The drawings on one wall mirror the drawings of the opposite wall. Whenever a person travels through the space, they unintentional interrupt the visual reflection. Thus, the phenomena of a bound space is only completed when someone enters into it.
The exhibit will also be open as part of the Nocturne Art at Night in Halifax 6pm to Midnight.

VANS Corridor Gallery
1113 Marginal Road
Halifax Nova Scotia

One room = One drawing = 22inches x 22 feet

Bonnie Baker — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:24:58 +0000

A year ago, I had the idea of binding a room from the inside out. Not with actual strands of rope but with contiguous drawings of rope. I wanted to contain a space with artwork not the other way around. I am curious as to how our perception of what is real and what is a representation of real, is changed by the physical space in which we view the drawings. The phenomena of a bound room is only completed when a viewer enters into the space.

binding is my first attempt to describe and define how the shape of a gallery space affects how we ‘read’ the art it encloses. According to Brian O’Doherty (formerly Patrick Ireland) “You draw to see what you are thinking.”

The exhibit, binding runs from August 29th to September 16, ARTsPLACE, Annapolis Royal NS.

Secrets and Apology, an altered book project

Bonnie Baker — Thu, 28 May 2009 01:39:15 +0000

With the addition of a small book press to my studio, I have a renewed interest in printmaking and art of the book. My latest project is an altered book. Other book projects can be seen in the Book Art gallery.

Good Intentions is my contribution to a collaborative project called ‘Secrets and Apology, Volume 1 and 2′, with artist Sarah Reesor. It is an altered book, with embossed pages and found text. The cover is embossed paper, acrylic paint and graphic. The title comes from the original collection of poetry by Ogden Nash called Good Intentions and the found text taken from the poems in the collection.

The two volumes will be included in the upcoming exhibit ‘Between the Pages‘, in Halifax, Nova Scotia during July 2 to August 31, 2009.

detail of embossed pages with found text

open pages from 'Good Intentions'