"Whimsical Soul"

Marc Ferland with his Guitar case

Marc Ferland, Montreal Born , Enderby Artist, puts “Whimsy and Soul” into His Work.

In Alert Bay, at 25 years of age Marc started an apprenticeship in carpentry. He fell in love with carpentry, it kept him grounded and gave him a comfortable living. He works well with his clients and through his suggestions he has helped them to create wonderful living spaces.

Working motivates Marc to be an artist. At work you are doing what your client wants you to do, but in your studio you can do 100% what you want to do. Wood is one medium Marc likes to study, copper fascinates him, his studio is full of his works in acrylic, soapstone, clay and repurposed old stuff. He is inspired by nature, getting out of town, off the road, paddling a canoe up the river, gives him back the vivid colors of life that you lose when you are surrounded by city walls and noise everyday. Marc loves being surrounded by other artists and music is also an inspiration.

Marc likes to share his knowledge in a spontaneous way, it's important to help the younger people that don't have the judgment and can listen to your ideas with an open mind. He would never want to teach in a structured setting but would like to do workshops, maybe how to do curves in wood?

Marc feels his greatest achievement is his friends. Sometimes he has to pinch himself in wonder at how he has so many good friends, “We spend a lot of time laughing at me.” He also wants to be himself and not to copy someone else; he knows inside he has something that no one else has. “Don't look for treasure in someone else's back yard, find the treasure inside yourself. Don't listen to the voices that say No, you can't do that, you don't have the money, the time, the materials. Art is about doing it.”

“Find the treasure inside of you, and work with what you have.”

Marc is a member of the Courtyard Gallery; for more information on the gallery, go to www.courtyardgallery.ca

His work melts into his hands. August 4, 2013 In the Courtyard of the Courtyard Gallery.

Slow Descent Into Abstraction

Friday October 24th The Reach in Abbotsford in collaboration with UFV presented the first in a series of Visiting Artist sessions with a presentation by Pete Smith.

About 15 to 20 of us sat in one of the new studios with Pete and his power point presentation. The first image on the screen was a statement about himself.

"Manufacturing and distributing fine cultural produce since 1975" Steve and I laughed figuring he was born in 1975 and we were correct.

It was interesting seeing the history of his Abstraction. Starting with pillows that he had tied, cut circles and re sewn, and painted with house paint. One piece he painted the address of and Art Gallery on it and stamped it and sent it through the mail. The post office said it was the strangest thing they had ever delivered and the Art gallery said it was the strangest thing they had ever received. He went on to sculpture using packaging for molds and plaster creating Alien Artifacts. If I still had my gallery this would be the month for the Alien Art show, seeing Smith's Alien Artifacts brought back fond memories of passed shows.
These days Pete is using everyday things we take for granted such as scrawls on walls with felt pen, graffiti, tags, a statement of existence or a testament that they were there, packaging, spam in our e-mails, shapes. He loves words, writing and shapes. Using a digital camera he photographs the detritus and puts them on transparencies to be traced into his abstracts. Some of us use photo shop for abstract photographs, but Pete is photo shop. He put together a manual of forms and shapes. You could fallow the evaluation of a shape such as the one that looked like yarn weaving in and around the abstract. In each progression of paintings the shape changed becoming thicker to be almost cylindrical cloud formations like a dream I had recently. Pete stopped using oil paint for acrylic paint because it is plastic like the world today. To further create the plastic image he covered his work with a thick layer of high gloss resin. All his works have titles such as "Usunioni", "Arm your Desire", "Out of this airless sky", Some found words that have no meaning and pirated phrases. After seeing the power point presentation Steve and I had to go to Pete's opening in Vancouver to see his work up close and refrain from touching.

On October 25th was the opening for Pete Smith's show "Proverbs for Paranoids" Its at the "Cristall gallery" the show is on till November 15th the address is 2245 Grandville St. Vancouver, Tuesday to Saturday 10:30am-5:30pm, Sunday 1-5pm. for more information visit www.cristallgallery.com or call 604.730.9611



After Pete's talk we were told he had to get to the bus station in 20 minutes so I snapped off a few hasty shots, if I had photo shop I could do some interesting abstracts with this photo taken at The Reach. Caroline Myny, Hugo Myny, Mary Anne, Pete Smith and Stella Johnson. I like the light play on the faces.