The Artist in the Window series concludes and continues

Yukon Artists @ Work(YA@W) continues to host the Artists in the Window series until the first week of September for paid demonstrations and artist talks. This way of working will continue, altering the way artists work their shifts. Two more artists are still to come – Jackie Dowell-Irvine and Jeanine Baker.

YA@W hosted two major art events this summer. Seen From Afar was a Covid-adapted version of our Plein Air festival of previous years, where artists worked solo in their own outdoor locations and sent pictures of their process. This resulted in two outdoor exhibitions in the YA@W yard in August. On the YA@W website, yaaw.com, pull down the Seen From Afar tab to see this work.

The other project was The Artist in the Window. Over the summer ten artists have been featured in the YA@W Gallery front windows. They were able to devote themselves to demonstrating their artwork and interacting with the public due to support from the Yukon Arts Fund, in collaboration with Music Yukon. YA@W collaborated with Music Yukon as both groups sought to adapt to the new COVID-19 realities. For years Music Yukon has presented Arts in the Park, a treasured lunchtime summer event with artist demos and music performances. COVID-19 has struck live musical performance particularly hard, and Music Yukon couldn’t host visual artists under the tent this year.

Music Yukon presented a four-week series of concerts broadcast through CJUC, the local radio station, and YA@W hosted artists in the window for those four weeks in collaboration with Arts in the Park, who paid their demo fees. This collaboration strengthened YA@W’s first Arts Fund application this spring, which also gave the group resources to host non-member artists, and artists travelling in from Yukon communities. We loved having Dennis Shorty and Jennifer Froeling join us for a week from Ross River, which would have been impossible without Arts Fund support. 

Jackie Dowell-Irvine from near Faro, a member of YA@W, will be in the window August 25-28. She will create daily watercolours as well as branching out into acrylics, continuing the TNT series she’s been doing since Covid began.

When we closed down for COVID-19 at the end of March, Dowell-Irvine found herself with all her gigs cancelled, a kind of freedom, though financially disconcerting. She had to ask herself, what do I really want to do myself, as an artist? And she found she wanted to make small watercolours, like she did when she began. Dowell-Irvine will host a daily draw for her tiny watercolours, but you have to actually come into the YA@W  gallery in order to be entered into the draw. You can see her work featured in the window until Monday August 31. 

Jeanine Baker will be preparing works for fusing as part of the Artists in the Window series at YA@W September 2-4. She will create works at various stages, to explain the step by step process to visitors. As a primarily self-taught glass artist,  Baker has “the best glass library north of 60.” She feels like she’s done an independent degree in glass, both practical and analytical. Baker loves straddling art and science in her glass works.  Baker will be setting up pieces for fusing and slumping, bringing a small kiln into the gallery so she doesn’t have to transport delicately placed pieces to her home kiln in Sima. She will describe these processes, share firing schedules, and you can see works evolve from step to step.

You can register to attend Zoom artist talks with these artists, Dowell-Irvine on August 27 and  Baker Thursday September 3 at 6:30 pm. Drop by YA@W, call 393 4848, or email [email protected] to register. YA@W member Leslie Leong has been developing her Zoom and interviewing skills in hosting these artist talks. 

Watch for Susanne Hauserman’s solo exhibition at YA@W for the month of September, where she will also be offering demonstrations of her experimental textile techniques on Saturdays in lieu of a pre-Covid style opening.

And keep an eye out for YA@W artists in the windows. We have found this is a great way to share our artistic visions in a very COVID–adaptable way, and will likely keep demonstrating in the windows as we work our shifts to keep the gallery open for you, as well as we can.

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