The AWOL Gallery on Ossington here in Toronto is holding their annual Square Foot show again this summer. They accept the first 500 artists, each of whom can submit up to 3 pieces. The theme of the show is that all pieces have to be exactly one square foot – 12″ per side – and no more than 5 inches deep. The gallery decides whether to hang one or more of the submissions from each artist. Some years I’ve had all 3 hung, one year they left one piece on the shelf.
This year I decided to submit variations on my Tree Dancers. It seemed like a high-traffic venue to introduce Tree Dancers to a wider 3D audience than has seen them previously. The two things I worked hard on were changing the form to a crouched or seated Dancer in order to fit the required square layout, and I spent extra effort on creating a relationship with the animals interacting with the Tree Dancers.
Lotus Dancer:
The beauty of the Lotus Flower rises from the earth and is perfect in it’s form and spirit. The Sparrow with it’s joyous simplicity and love of community is drawn to this perfection as if it were a mirror.
The Wistful Prince:
I ought to make this clear – the wistful Frog Prince is wishing he could kiss the Tree Dancer awake.
A Bit of News:
The day-to-day goings on of the forest are tid-bits a busy squirrel brings to a calm and quiet Dancer who is resting on the loam.
August 12 edit to add . . . This is a cool thing. My Lady was talking with a woman today. The woman, who really likes the My Dancer drawing that sits in my Lady’s office, pulled out her phone and showed my Lady a photo taken of the Lotus Dancer. She wanted to know if I was the artist. It seems she has a friend had been at the Square Foot show and who sent her a message telling her how much really good work there was to be seen there. He added a photo to demonstrate – and the photo was of the Lotus Dancer 🙂
August 19 edit to add – the day before I left to go camping in Awenda Provincial Park this past week, my Lady & I dropped by the show to get a look at the work. I really liked a lot of what I saw. The range and imagination of work shown is truly amazing. I was really happy to see that The Lotus Dancer and A Bit of News have sold 🙂 Now to do the pick up and see if The Wistful Prince has joined the other 2 in finding a new home.