We are All Linked - Hexagon Party

2 boxes of clay+ 3 hours + 20 creators = 280 Hexagons

Last night was great fun in my studio at the hexagon creating party!!! The experience was priceless. These hexagons are special as they have sayings on them about how we are all linked in the world, and were created by a diverse group of woman. The hexagons will become clusters for my art installation next January. These hexagons will go in the trees in Friendship Park as part of a City of Saskatoon Placemaker Project I am working on.

Thanks to Janice for all of the organizing and to my husband who helped to roll the clay slabs. Thanks to Ava for sharing her musical talents with us at the beginning of the evening.

Bees - Equal in the Hive

One interesting thing I find about worker bees is the equality in value in the hive. This series of three prints on mulberry paper was created thinking about this.

Equal I

Ink on Mulberry Paper 

Linocut Techinque 

33 x 24", 83 x 61 cm

Equal II

Ink on Mulberry Paper 

Linocut Techinque 

33 x 24", 83 x 61 cm

Equal III

Ink on Mulberry Paper 

Linocut Techinque 

33 x 24", 83 x 61 cm

Tiles at Georges Vanier

The students of Georges Vanier School created decorative tiles for the outside of our new building. The images below are of one fo the last tiles being installed.

The Streets Were Buzzing with "Just Be"

http://moniquemartinart.blogspot.com/2013/07/just-be-just-blossom.html

Check out the images from the "Just Be" project at the above link. 

Thank you to all of those who participated in the project. 

BIG INK - The Bees are Buzzing

I had the pleasure of creating a very large print with Lyell Castonguay and the BIG INK Project this past weekend in Florence, MA. It is a tryptich printed three times on the same piece of paper. The bees tessellate. It was very very ard to print. I am very thankful for everyone's help in lining up the block for printing.

I am heading to the states next month to print this very large woodcut for The BIG INK project with Lyell Castonguay.

It is a tesselating piece in that the bees on the long sides match up and make a full bee. So I will be printing it on a very large sheet of paper 36 x 48" in size. I am super excited. The images below are of the process of carving the block.

   

Going, Going, Gone - Linocut Prints about Colony Collapse

 

Going, Going, Gone (series) 

Artist Statement

Monique Martin

Linocut 

Ink on Mulberry Paper 

  108 x 27.5” 

Rooftops of Paris have become home to millions of bees, it is this that has inspired these pieces in response to the work of John TaylorArms, Gargoyle in his Quarry. I had the pleasure of working with some Parisian beekeepers over the past year, which led me to understand the complexity/complex and the absolute way of things.  The three layers artistically interpret the active healthy hive, the hive beginning to struggle and—in the front panel—the hive is near collapse. Now bees look over the rooftops of Paris just as the gargoyles do.

This piece will be exhibited at the Art Complex Museum, Auxbury, Massachusetts in 2015.  

#bees #colonycollapse #linocut

Bees on the Driveway

I am working with 100 lbs of dead bees trying to dry them to use in a sculpture. On the first really warm day this spring I spread them out on blankets on my driveway.   Prior to this my artist friend, Cathryn Miller and I, freeze dried them in a very cold place and put them in small bags.

Fingers crossed this sun drying works and they are in perfect form for our sculpture which will be unveiled this upcoming January.

 

Thank you to my ever understanding husband who helped me with this process.

Hexagon Linking Evening

Last night I had a great deal of fun working with teachers from St. John School, linking the hexagons that the students created as part of the "We are All Linked" project. The project is part of the Placemaker Program with the City of Saskatoon and the pieces will be installed in the trees around the Meewasin Valley Center in January of 2015.

 Hard at work

Who is the Fairest in the Land

This piece is a series that I am working on based on the selfie. It is called "Cellphone, cellphone in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?"

It is a pastel on canvas, on purpose, as I could try and remove all of the pastel but never be successful there would always be a stain, which is the same for the internet, you can try and remove it but there will often leave a trace.