Author: Marilyn

I'm an artist working primarily in wood. My work has taken a story-telling path over the past two years.

Exploring multimedia

  • d:6″ Ash bowl with irridized glass rim
  • d:8″ Pecan bowl with turquoise glass mosaic
  • d:16″ Manitoba Maple platter with dichroic medalion
Over the years I have been tempted to add glass to my turnings. Note to self: turnings are spherical so mosaics have to be small! These three turned out well and the light reflections and color changes add a dynamic interest. The Ash bowl was initially turned when I was just getting started with turning. My local club (Bytown woodturners, Ottawa) insisted that I join them at a demo at the local home show exhibition – I thought they were mad at the time, the experience was absolutely terrifying but fun.

Path of the Cherimoya

This work dates back a few years but was pivotal in my development as an artist using wood. In 2016 I designed a turned/carved Cherimoya fruit that I was going to submit to the Women in Turning “Fruit of our Labor” show case. However as my husband, Richard’s health deteriorated I lost heart in woodwork and the Cherimoya was left incomplete. In the Spring of 2017 after returning from a wonderful trip to Australia to visit my brother, I felt the need to do something that would help my mind focus and revitalize my interest in woodworking. The abandoned Cherimoya fruit I had started in 2016 as a simple turned box was ideal. While the turning was more or less complete, I had yet to start on the carving and guilding. The sequential, repetitive task of removing small slivers of wood to reveal the skin texture was the perfect task for my wondering mind. My attention span which rivaled that of a gnat when I started, progressed to the point where I could enjoyably spend several hours chipping away. The found rotted branch. which just needed to be cleaned and sealed was the perfect “nest” to hold this precious piece. Life on My Own as an artist started and LOMO2017.com was conceived
“Cherimoya” Turned, Carved, dyed basswood. h:5.5″, d:3.5″

Dark Sky: Virgo

  • Hunter Moon
  • Harvest moon
  • Harvest moon (side)

Tubac, an artists’ community near the border with Mexico is working towards an International Dark Sky designation (https://www.darksky.org/). As part of that effort the local organizers are working on a number of community events to celebrate the dark skies around Tubac. We have optical telescopes on nearby mountains so there are already some restrictions on lighting.

I’m anticipating a call to artists in the New Year and am trying to get a jump start on things. The full moon and the constellation Virgo will tie all the pieces together. The first piece, Hunter Moon is a commentary on our need to chase the night away with lights. As our bodies lose sight of the natural rhythms of day and night, so too our own internal circadian rhythms become disrupted. Many of us turn to pills to restore sleep. Virgo the constellation is revealed in the New Moon dark sky.

The second piece, Harvest Moon still features a red moon, but this time Virgo is front and center. The message lies in the harmony between the sun, earth and moon in the context of the cosmos represented by virgo, the maiden

The next pieces are still mind works…

Thinking about water

All three sculptures are turned and carved from maple and colored using transparent aniline dyes and guilders pastes. The first is mounted on a walnut burl, the second and third feature pyrography and india ink embellishments.
Water has become an obsession. I strive to understand the dynamics of sustainability in an area with an 11″ average rainfall per year. ” Intelligence” was the first completed sculpture and was created in January 2019 in response to a call to artists by the Tubac Presidio which, in turn, was sponsoring the Smithsonian Water Ways traveling exhibit. It introduces the up-thrusting hand reaching for the last raindrop. The caption on the base is a quote from Piaget: “Intelligence is not what we know, but what we do when we don’t know”.
“Consesquences” is the second work . It was made in response to a call to artists from the Lowe House, in Tubac. As an artist-in-residence destination, the Lowe House featured themed exhibits related to history of Tubac. In this case the theme was “shared River/Rio Compartido”
This desert area of Southern Arizona has been home to mankind since the beginning of the Holocene, the time of man, approximately 12,000 years. In “Consequences”, a basket weave illusion of the Tohono O’odham labyrinth, commonly referred to as the “Man in the Maze”, is used to represent the time line of peoples who have left indications of their presence upon the land. A representation of the Tubac section of the Santa Cruz river is superimposed on the labyrinth. A second watercourse depicts the irrigation channel dug by Juan Bautista De Anza in the late 1760’s. The water was used to support the settlement and irrigate local crops and enclosed the Tubac settlement. The uplifting hand grasping the last raindrop represents contemporary man’s now voracious quest for water while the hand thrusting below into the ground is grasping minerals laid bare by open pit mines that now characterize this area.
“Faith” is the third in the series. It was created in response to a call to artists for the Members’ juried show at the Tubac Center for the Arts. In this piece, the petro-dollar is floating on a magic carpet. Humanity is striving to keep the artifact afloat and in turn maintain our creative and consumptive life styles where water is used in mineral and fossil fuel extraction that in turn enables our power grid, planes, trains, cars, plastics, garbage, pollution and subsidence. While we strive on, alternative currencies are emerging. The blue hand is tattooed with a flag that conceals “in what we trust”.