Curtains


This work has come from of my need to process the experience of being pregnant. It's just a short series of 4 pieces, but needing to be done.

See the other pieces


thanks to Jesse Hildabrand for the use of his super photos here

Lost Shoes Exhibit at Raw Sugar Cafe





If you haven't been to the new & gorgeous Raw Sugar Cafe you should come and see my exhibition of my 

Lost Shoes
 -looks so at home in the fabulous decor, it could have been made for the space!

692 Somerset West @ Cambridge (next one to Bronson)

Opening party;
Wednesday 18th Feb, 5.30pm onwards

The exhibition runs all thro the month of February, hours are from 11am - 7ish everyday.





See also article in Ottawa Magazine February edition,
 on art in restaurants

and an article in this week's Ottawa Focus WebMagazine


Zadie's Shoes

I have made a  special installation for the play 'Zadie's Shoes' at the GCTC 
entitled 'Zadie's Shoe/Ben's Shoe'.

It is inspired by the fragility of the lives the men in the play and their collective struggles.

You can see it alongside photographic work of artist Andrew Hind
23rd Oct - 9th Nov 2008 
at the Fritzi Gallery - upstairs at the Irving Greenberg Theatre
1233 Wellington St West (@Holland)
Ottawa

Hours:
Mon - Fri 10am - 6pm
Sat - 10am - 4pm
Sun - 12pm- 4pm

For more info please contact
Don Monet at Cube Gallery 613 728 1750



Lou in the news!


Hear me on the radio!
Interview about my work on CBC Radio 'All in A Day' 
Go to;
Aug 08, 2008

Lost Shoes

CBC All in a Day




See me in print!
Jessica Ruano's interview with me about my shoes in the Ottawa Life Magazine August edition.




Harbinger at Dale Smith Gallery



You can see my piece 'Scroll Shoe' at
The Dale Smith Gallery, Ottawa

Vernissage Thurs 31st July 7-10pm
show runs to August 17th 2008.


Fibre at Blink

Fibre at Blink Group Show
Opening Thurs 17th 6.30-9pm.

Show runs till Sunday 2oth 

I will be at the gallery;
Thurs eve
Fri 18th 12.30-3.30
Sat 19th 1.30-2.30 *shoemaking demo at 1pm!
Sun 20th 11.30-2.30
(tho gallery is open other times too)

Artist Statement - Lost Shoes


April 2008


I am fascinated by the historical relationships between extremes in social classes - the artist and the noble, the shoe maker and the dandy. I explore the extravagant styles and fashions of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries where for a brief period, men got to play dress up too. This flamboyance has inspired me to create an exaggerated world.

As a costumer I have designed outfits for countless imaginary people, but shoes
 often remain on the sketchpad. They are the shoes of the decadent and the elite, the shoes I didn't get to make. In life as in the theatre, it is only the truly wealthy who get really beautiful shoes.

My shoes are like lost treasures as if just discovered; only one of the pair remains, the other having been lost during the passage of time. Each piece nestles within a unique structure as a pearl in its shell. They are contained in their boxes and resting places as if in protection against time and reality.

These life size shoes could have been worn by those whose feet rarely touched the ground, and had no reason to be practical. I imagine the whims of kings; 'something in brocade and silk....with wings' whose loss of an item is inconsequential.

To find a precious item, even only one of a pair, is still a treasure.

Artist Statement - Women's Work

May 2005.

I made the first piece out of scraps of fabric woven together around my feet. I'd dipped the cloth in beeswax after I'd read an old, and much more interesting version of the Red Shoes fairy tale, as retold by Clarissa Estes. Her version was about how much better the hand made shoes were than the shiny shop bought ones, even though they were crudely made. The shop bought ones kill the girl in the end as she dances herself to death.

This work with scraps, bits of leftover costume fabric and worn out clothes, started as an experiment to see if I could salvage something out of the things I still loved. I started to buy small jewels of fabric to add to my hoard of treasure. As I worked I found that any kind of weaving and binding was possible, any kind of shape or form.

Women work, patching up and smoothing out, making do, weaving into a shape that fits better. Somehow it all stays together, like homes kept from falling down by African women who add more mud each day to the walls.
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)