Of Note

1. Radio interview with Aganetha Dyck: CBC Radio Definitely Not the Opera interview with Governor General's Award-winning Winnipeg-based Canadian artist Aganetha Dyck: Aganetha Dyck collaborates with bees. Aganetha is one of my art heroes. She was the first visual artist of Russian Mennonite descent that I knew of and has been a role model of what is possible. The interview is just under 9 minutes long and in it I learned how she has moved an idea forward out of necessity (a bee allergy) and how her glass dress took twelve seasons to make (durational art).

On the hot afternoon of my grandfather's funeral, I learned that Aganetha Dyck won the Canada Council's Governor General's Award for Visual and Media Arts. News of her well-deserved recognition brought comfort during a difficult day.

2. Durational Art: Peter Jacobs' exhibition at Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey of a selection of nearly 3700 collages made every morning for ten years from The New York Times, an X-Acto blade, art pad and glue. It all began with a conversation with his wife Elizabeth, a sculptor, about "the importance of discipline, regularity, and relevancy in art-making" on March 31, 2005. Read more about his daily practice on his blog The Collage Journal.

3. A daily practice: Textile artist Helen Terry writes about her daily practice of mark-making in 40 day stints. She begins this challenge in February, 2015, and continues with a second round in March 2015 where she encounters and works through challenges and frustrations. In May, 2015 she writes about round three of her 40-day daily practice. Her marks are beautiful and she is learning a lot from pushing herself through her perceived failures. I'd like to challenge Helen to look at those "experiments that didn't work ... and couldn't be rescued" with fresh eyes to see how she can wreck them to the point that she saves them.