Because I promised (both myself and the blog) to post this, here’s a cut and paste of the approved proposal for the show that I’m having with Laurie Dempster at the Devon House Gallery in October. We’ve modified and refined bit of it here and there, but basically it’s as we set it up initially. I’ll post later about exactly what I’m doing and any changes that we might have made to the plan.

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Objective and Theme
This proposal began with a meeting of two people whose styles and use of colours mesh fairly well wanting to do a show together. While using different media, namely rug hooking and quilting, we tend to overlap in our subject matter, which is primarily landscapes. Within the realm of landscapes, however, we have highly individual reactions to and depictions of similar geographical locations. This collection of works will demonstrate our artistic reactions to landscapes and the process through which we recreate them in fibre.

The focus of these pieces will be the age-old theme of journeys and homecomings, finding an artistic centre and the emotional reaction to place. While there is nothing particularly innovative about the theme, the works themselves, by virtue of being original creations of the artists involved, will be unique. To better demonstrate the creative process, we will each display pages from notebooks and sketchbooks kept throughout the endeavour.

The landscapes portrayed will be real, imagined and dreamed. They will include places we have been that have evoked a strong visceral reaction and (hopefully) that reaction will be evident in the pieces. Through our artwork, we travel back to places we have visited and are inspired to explore places we have not yet experienced. Our travels to other places, real or imagined, change our impression of the landscapes we call home, often impelling us to break from traditional interpretations of those scenes, through the creative use of traditional and non-traditional techniques, the rethinking of colour and the reshaping of the borders of our works.

Jointly, we hope to create a collection of works that will allow us to show what we already do as well as to challenge us to create pieces of other places, shapes and dimensionalities.

While it is possible that pieces already in existence may fit well with this show, it is our intention to each create a new body of work for display. To that end, we each intend to create ten to fifteen pieces of varying sizes, realising that not all will be compatible with the show as a whole for any number of reasons. This schedule allows us to complete five to eight extra pieces per year, in addition to the works we already do for other events.

All pieces will be ready for hanging, with the proper fixtures and rods. It is our intention to make them fairly easy to hang, with each primarily being held by a rod through a sleeve at the top with eyelets on each end. The sizes will range from approximately 60�?x36�? to 12�?x12�? squares. It is also anticipated that a collection of smaller pieces would be made with an eye to being hung as a grouping. Most pieces, however, ever, would be somewhere in between these extremes.