i'm rebecca richards and i'm the director of the belmont gallery of art i'd like to welcome you to the initial episode of artist statements which is a collaborative television production between the belmont gallery of art and the belmont media center that highlights the art and the artists in our current exhibits the exhibit we have up on the walls right now is called voices surface it is a mixed media collage exhibit which features the work of these three women artists and johnstone carroll wintle and helen canada and they all work in some form of collage but yet their styles are very unique in distinct from one another and i welcome everybody to come up and see the exhibit it opens september twenty third with a wonderful reception and it goes until sunday november twentieth and we have a special event on sunday october twenty third from two to four pm which is an artist's gallery talk and i welcome everybody to come to the talk learn more about the art on the walls get to learn more about the artists and see this fiber an exhibit it's  interesting because each one of the women works in collage mixed media techniques but they all have a very different style and but the styles compliment one another and people who have come out to the gallery have all been amazed at how wonderful the pieces do work together so i'm hoping that visitors who come to the show take that away from from seeing the art on the walls that was a wonderful opportunity to see you at work in your studio and i mean when i first saw your work i was really struck by number one how vivid your colors are your palette that you work with is just exquisite and also things were not quite what they initially seemed to me i would look in looking book more and take away other things you know from your work and again i hope viewers coming up to the show will take away some interesting things as well and now very precise cutting adding something to a piece that later i figure doesn't belong and so it's still waiting for me to find the right thing to put there and finish the piece but i work with a spatula and a lot of elbow grease and i work that paper image into the paper base this is one summer i took the theme of underwater and for a week i created pictures underwater i start with a base picture this is a picture of a table to farm and this piece is similar to what and saying i i work with reality and fantasy and and how close they are together this is my artist prayer that i have paying you know my wall to remind me to make time to do my art that was one thank you carol and now we'll see helen at work in her studio space i really want to go it's a venue more urban and like street more like street low so why would the frame frame let's approach with just metal hoax here and like glass over it which i think works well for the scene  wanted i wanted the common element through four pieces so they all have i sort of used a silhouette the same silwood same exact shape half of his face and then with the idea that  that was also fascinating to see us at work helen and one of the things that that strikes me even more seeing those clips is how you have you know something that you share among the three of you which is this you know working with collage but how incredibly unique you know each one of you your style is your approach to making art so that's really fascinating and again i think that's really there's a nice synergy you know in the show and a gain it comes through in these clips and on the walls of this is a very vibrant show up at the gallery so what i'd like to do not is actually ask each one of the artists to speak about something in their work a little bit more at length and  there are some things they alluded to in the clips that we just saw and i'd like them to expand upon upon that a little bit so and you say that a lot of your work is rooted in imagination you know but you also you're influenced by memories so can you speak to that a little bit well some of it is memories of just people and how they are facial features bodies how they work because my grandmother used to bring us big plates of fruit and and cook us a lot of good vegetables in the summertime when we were visiting there  so it is a nice memory and for a long time that connected me to the collage work that i was that i use and i use collage in a way i think that's different from helen and what's actually there i mean i'm using to make an eye or different i can't remember exactly but you know the thing that's interesting it's not so obvious honestly until i started really examining your work i hadn't realized that i just saw these exquisite canvas paintings and then i started looking more and more and right and i saw you know a like a little bit for like  something for you know whatever like asparagus or something that was you know but then i saw these little pieces and i think in the form of a beer and yeah and it was just amazing there's one with a sunflower as and some flower as a mouth right you know the other thing is i know that you you must have a very active inner life life of the maya i think we all do right and so that's something that you also allude to my work is very much about my inner dialogue i like and i like that no i like the term energia log because sitting next to your two fellow artists from this show i mean i'm sure that the two of you would also agree that there's a hole in her dialogue that is that is part of your art making right yes and so so carol would you like to speak a little bit to your to your art making i know that a lot of your work has a lot of serene images there's a sense of tranquility and i know that there are recurring motifs in your work water gardens sort of almost sacred spaces would you like to speak to some of them yes i had a very difficult childhood and i was in a lot of pain and lonely very lonely and to me to go outside and to be in nature and to use my imagination was a way to xscape my reality of my life and and so you see that through my are all throughout like there's a bench in the woods and that's the reality but the next to it is this magical world and as a little child i love stories about fairies and to me those were like beings that were out there helping me and supporting me and helping me feel better my mom was a gardener she had a beautiful garden and i am a gardener and anytime i can be outside especially in the spring summer fall i like it because it just balances me and helps me become calm in my work i have to be calm to do my job as a psychotherapist need to work to to calm it and i actually ask yeah so so in the past i had an idea for show you know art as healing art as therapy and i had a small group of artists that i was meeting with and they all said to me all art is healing all art is there a puter so i thought it almost couldn't even define a separate show because for those artists that just the act of creating there's something healing there's something therapeutic i think many of us have issues from our childhood and so on that you know affect us and maybe sad in profound ways and and creating something maybe you know getting either into your head or outside your head or you know being in nature you know for you carol is is very healing you know that there's a statue beautiful statue there's this incredible bird with a blue light blue ring around it the trojan bar party bird and their skis flying over which represents the soul passing and so even though you know can be sold to cult emotionally there's a peacefulness to it there's an acceptance it's honoring the person  o it's looks very very peaceful but to me it symbolizes so many other layers to it and then there's a this is a fantasy want to storytelling when it's it's i created it because i was working with green green colors but i looked at it afterwards and i saw this redheaded woman who was a dancer and she lived in this this a state where there were shutters on the walls so it was very dark inside an oppressive and he she was with this you know wild spirit so there's cranes on the lawn of the state she sees no future for herself this is your european turn the center of whatever she's going to get married to some old man you know  not going to be able to have romance she's not going to be able to have for freedom so she becomes one of the cranes and flies off with very and helen your work has has i mean is again you're using some collage techniques your work has many layers and you have an interesting background because you grew up in paris and as you had said to me earlier you were surrounded by many famous museums and instead of sort of been bracing more traditional art impressionist art you know different types of fine art you found yourself more attracted to modern art and leaning in that direction so i'd like you to speak a little bit about that and also one of the things that i was struck by and your own work is that you have several pieces dedicated to musicians most notably david bowie you have a to devoted to david bowie so i just wanted you to speak a little bit also about the importance maybe of music if at all in you know when you're creating your work and and and just let us know a little bit about your process ye feel and just amplify whatever whatever you feel so going back to what i mentioned earlier about wanting to paint things that i couldn't see sometimes working on a piece also permeates through the the nature or the identity of the of the the musician itself and there have been a small number of musicians who have really influenced song was just very touching to me and so the triptych is about especially the central piece just brings to life the little blue bird that is hidden in on the right and of the the painting the other which is it's more of a study which is based on a david gray who was a remarkable independent rock musician from england his lyrics are phenomenal and have really  really inspired me for years was an egg started as an exercise on how to try to visualize what was going inside his head when he who he was from the inside and again you know trying to paint what i couldn't see following maybe the influence of egon schiele who's definitely my by by a long stretch my favorite painter trying to exaggerate any and distort to a certain point anything that you could or couldn't see and that's a that's a that's an endless source of inspiration i painted for so far but i could see myself just painting more and more because there's just so many different dimensions to the artist and you know one might be about a particular song and the other one might be about this creative process so so that that's been that's been a wonderful source of inspiration that's fascinating to hear and that the whole david gray as you said it's not a triptych but it is three pieces that are high you know we're together and to get inside maybe the musician's head as they're creating either writing their lyrics or are you know composing the music that's really a fascinating thing to let about as well as capturing the mood of i never spent a lot of time thinking about that and i think it has to me it helps me define what art symbolizes to me in that it is pure it really is freedom and i think we might have had a conversation about what that means especially for working moms who have so little budget but i think that really applies more generally to just about anyone living in today is crazy world that we live and in that you know you win when you are working when you are that time stops and responsibilities stop and you're just really entering a magical world where there there is no rules there is no compromises needed there is you know it's it is it is pure freedom and you are literally stepping out of of your everyday life every day of the world so i think that at least for me is just one of the most magical experiences an artist to answer your first question i did grow up right outside of paris and yes i did i was lucky enough to grow up in a family were arc was very much valued and went to probably more museums than i cared to go to have the time as a child my family's concept of our do was somewhat limited in a way in that i think their their primary interest was from say the a child i started drawing and i was very quickly interested in replicating art replicating what i could see in front of me and i thought that that's that's pretty and pretty much the message that i had learned from my family with that was the more talented the artist was and so as a teenager i spent a lot of time drawing and trying to replicate as vividly and every little detail what i what i saw in front of me a lot of portraits and after a few years i left it behind and up until really three four years ago i started painting again and it occurred to me that what i really was interested in was to paint but i couldn't  see because it's because it's limitless it's you know there is no rules and that's what going back to my definition of what art is which is freedom which is something that is exulting and means the world to me working on collages working on abstract collages it's like work stepping onto a different planet and there is absolutely no right or wrong you are a pioneer and you're just you're there is there is no wrong path you know and if you do go on under the path that somehow you're not didn't expect to find yourself on you will if there was a reason why you're on that path it will get you deeper into the story of the piece i think that inspiration to me is the ability to tune into the voice or the energy of the piece that you're working on and being willing to follow that voice wherever it wants to take you or one of the things to me that's one of the things about your work that i really responded to even when i first met you was i mean there are some pieces that are more somber but there is also there's a real  work and i really i mean you know when the first time i viewed some of your work i just was kind of awestruck by oh beautiful they were and and and i had never seen anything quite quite like that well in motion is my primary primary source of inspiration universe it just strikes me how i'm a human emotions are universal and if there's any truth out there with a capital t i think that the way we feel people feel the same way through time and across cultures i'm sure that in and carol absolutely agree with that i mean it's you know that you know obviously that there's emotion there's some kind of emotion that's running through all of your work i mean absolutely right you know and i don't know i think and as you mentioned you know the puzzle pieces of a puzzle because i know that that that helen you've mentioned that as well and so do you do the three of you yeah it's like putting together the pieces of a puzzle in some ways or applying i mean i don't want to you know for me personally i like to think of it as creating a story out of complete chaos and you do and i do love that that structure disjointed process of collage i love starting with madness and and finding through it just really  channeling through the energy of the colors and the shapes that might be purely coincidental and just from there just playing around with pieces until until they really start singing to me so to  speak and just building from there and just just following following the pieces so maybe for madness to to a sense of clarity like it's you are right so that's right that would be the end result ok now i was going to also ask and that your piece out on the time which a lot of people responded to at the reception and they had said that they really saw an influence of chicago in that piece and yes that's not necessarily intentional i heard that i read something a quote by sugar of the said that art is nothing if it's not about love and i think maybe that's that sentiment is what i miss fun to there because i like had a difficult childhood and art was always a refuge a place of the scape i actually feel like a lot of my paintings about hiding me hiding in the pain thinking and hiding both away from the childhood th was difficult but also hiding from people who may sense that difficulty and have their own difficulties with so so there's  so my thinking about my painting is very convoluted and it's not always easy to to describe why i would say thought provoking is a good way also to describe your work and i think that's that's something that's a very that's a that's a that's a strong point about your work it's something that again i can stand i love to stand in front of pieces and just sort of interpret them reinterpret them and try to figure out what what's the artist trying to say what's the statement here and again things that might be just like an exquisite painting just something that's lovely to look at as you you start looking at it and you see those layers and  passes because i got the bottom have to work but there was something on top that i didn't like and then i put more collage and and reconfigured the image to be sort of  figure in some kind of violent pose i think and and alarm is is sort of like waking up to a reality that is terrifying and the world has changed i mean thinking about your nine eleven pieces well i've seen people you know and i've been up in the gallery i've seen people cluster around certain pieces and that's a piece that i've seen people you know standing in front of and talking about it and i think trying to you know figure out what what's the message here what is it what is it all difficult to it's just difficult it's just there and it's going to affect you somehow well i wanted to say that let people know that the show is a very vibrant show there are some thought provoking provocative pieces in the show as well and the show is going on until november twentieth at the belmont gallery of art we also have a special event taking place on october twenty third which is an artist's gallery talk so and helen will all be there on site to talk about their work take visitors through the show and if there are specific pieces people would like more information about that's going to be happening as well will have some tea and pastries for people it's a sunday afternoon from two to four and we encourage everybody to come to that gallery talk and then carol is also going to be offering something later in november when she is at the gallery on a sunday afternoon she's going to be offering  a i guess a simple collage making workshop and also address the meditative issues i'm going to of have a little conversations about art is meditation and i'm also going to have all the materials out there available so that people can actually look at our collages and then make their own kludges and go home with their own little four by six and i'm going to do that two sundays november sixth and november twenty ninth ok very good i just want to make a pitch for the belmont value of art right now a number of people in belmont have yet to discover the gallery which is very surprising since we've been there for eleven years and i think the challenges we have a beautiful space really an exquisite gallery space but we're up stairs on the third floor of the home or building which is right across from the town hall and i encourage everybody who's watching this program this is a wonderful wonderful show i mean again we've gotten tremendous feedback from people who have been up  to see the art exhibit again i want to give a strong a strong pitch for people to come up see the gallery again we've been there for eleven years there's a group of very dedicated people who run the space and so i encourage you to come and visit thank