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Feb. 15, 2013
Art forms in complement
Carolyn Kramer and Melanie Thompson display at the Zack.
OLGA LIVSHIN
Artists Carolyn Kramer and Melanie Thompson came together because of Reisa Schneider, director of the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery.
Schneider first encountered Thompson’s work in 2011, when the artist participated in the group exhibit It’s All About Love. She recalled: “When I talked with Carolyn Kramer about her upcoming exhibit, I suggested she consider having Melanie’s lamps accompany her paintings. I just had a feeling their art would look great together. The artists didn’t know each other but when they read about each other’s artwork and saw samples on the Internet, they were immediately on board. I couldn’t have been more pleased when I saw how well the art forms fit together in the gallery. It is as if they were created at the same time, in the same place and under the same influence. They play together. They sway together and they speak strongly of the artists’ shared love of nature.”
Schneider’s instinct was accurate. Kramer’s abstract paintings, imbued with imagination impassioned by nature, and Thompson’s unique light fixtures, crafted of natural materials, seem to be a perfect match. Both artists find inspiration in their environment, although they came to their meeting point at the Zack by different routes.
Kramer is a professional artist. She taught for many years and was one of the founding board members and first art teachers of Arts Umbrella. During her student days, she studied biology in addition to art, and was fascinated by the view under the microscope. “The microscope lets you see beneath the surface,” she said. “I was fascinated by the world I could see under the microscopic lenses. A simple strawberry – it’s so beautiful. You can’t touch it. It is almost magical.”
She did some illustrations of microscopic images for her thesis but later abandoned the concept for different themes, until last year, when she returned to the microscopic projections. This time, when the micro-universe once again pulled her into its mystery, she was an eager visitor.
“I’ll stay with the nature theme for awhile,” she said. Anything of nature – the microscopic representation of a leaf or a strata slice of a mountain or foaming debris on a seashore – ignites her creative aspirations.
“I travel and hike a lot and I take photos everywhere,” she explained. “The rocks. The grasses. A side of a cliff. The sea near Crete – it was such an amazing color.”
The shining emerald hues of her painting “Emerging” reflect her recollections of the Mediterranean, and the energy of the painting invites visitors to dive in, to experience the green-blue water on their skin.
The idea for another painting, “Illuminated Waters,” was born in a swimming pool. “I was swimming at night, and the water was illuminated by electric lights. It was sparkly, fantastic, ephemeral,” she said. The bubbles, waves and golden sparks on the triumphantly turquoise field live up to her description.
“I try to follow nature in every brush stroke,” she said. “Painting is almost like meditation for me. I look at what I paint and ask myself: would this happen in nature? Nature doesn’t have straight lines. I should add a squiggle here or a downward pull there or some falling bits. It’s intuitive.”
Several of her paintings at the gallery represent the bottoms of various local beaches, when the tide is gone. Kramer turned the deceptive disorder of a disordered beach, scattered with kelp, into images of beauty, subtle patterns and curling shapes.
The unconscious kinship of her painted lines with the whimsical designs of Thompson’s lightshades adds a sense of completeness to the show.
“I was an elementary school teacher,” said Thompson of her background. “I didn’t have any artistic education before I moved to Salt Spring Island in 1993.”
There, she took her first basketry class and was instantly enchanted by the medium. A couple years later, she and a group of other women – basketry enthusiasts – formed a local basketry guild and started bringing teachers from Europe and England. Thompson makes baskets and lampshades using a wide variety of materials in her work: rattan vines and cedar bark, kelp and grass, seed heads, copper wire and beads.
“Part of the joy of making art is collecting material,” she said. Although she buys some of her supplies she also finds a lot of it. “I find willow sticks at the roadsides and in people’s gardens. Grasses and reeds I might pick up from a ditch. I ride my bike all the time. Sometimes I see nice seed heads or grasses and I always have my clippers with me. I just forage for discarded stuff in nature. Everything is so beautiful, even if it’s decaying.”
In her house on the island, she has a room dedicated to her supplies. “I tie grass and reeds and sticks in bunches and hang them from the shower rods there to dry,” she explained. “Every day, even if I don’t make anything, I’m always at my studio: sorting, checking. You have to show up, and the ideas will flow. I’ve made around 150 lamps already, each one different, but using similar basketry technique, and I have so many new ideas. I want to demonstrate how any material could be used in a non-traditional way, give it an unusual context. I see the possibilities everywhere.”
The joint show Elements of Influence opened Feb. 6 at the Zack Gallery and is up until March 3.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
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