Artists Residency replaced with art challenges

Challenge Eight

Lens based artist, Mario Cerroni continues the project with Challenge number eight.

"Leavings", 21"h X 27"w, photography,
$600, framed

The bottom layer is my mother's passport from when we came to Canada in 1953. I was 20 months old. They traveled by boat, leaving Naples on Nov 21 and arrived in Halifax on Dec 1. I can't imagine what conditions would be like to cross the Atlantic during the last week of November!

But when the hopes of a new and better life await you I imagine that it strengthens your resolve and contributes to your perseverance.

The surface layered images are from a house that I visited in Priverno, Italy in May of 2019. It was my first trip back to Italy. The house that is pictured stands on the land that my dad's family occupied. This house has been sitting empty since the early to mid 80's. It has now been bought by a cousin that is going to restore it. My parents would have visited my dad's parents in this house.

So the image is about what's left behind when new beginnings are sought.

It might be about origins. And it might be about dreams and hopes and the courage to pursue them.

I haven't finished with the image either. It is evolving. Not sure where it will be in a month or so.
Anyway - I hope that something in the image and/or the back story strikes a chord and inspires you...

7 WORKS COLLECTIVE PROJECT

Residency Replaced

Lynn Dubinsky

"Should I"
24"h x 20"w, acrylic on canvas
$800

Cliffs and ocean always conjure up memories of living in Ireland a place I still call home.

Karen Wynne Mackay

"Centre Stage"
48"h x 35"w, acrylic
$3000

This piece was based on research that I did on my great grandfather. I found out he was a playwright, musician and tightrope walker. My great grandmother was an actress. These floral, plume images brought to mind the stage in those days early 1900’s. It was such an exciting piece to create.

Catherine Gutsche

"Opportunities Beyond"
20"h x 24"w, mixed media collage
$775

For this challenge I returned to my collage days. Collage seemed to me to be the ideal technique to reflect the components of ancestry. Our lives are the result of pasts that 'assemble' us. In Mario's photo I saw through the doorway opportunity, the opportunity that his family envisioned in the new world overseas.

Jo-ann Zorzi

"life travels onwards"
18"h x 36"w, silk fiber drawing/fusion with stitch
$500

Every human is created from another and travels from birth to death.

The journeys are of varying lengths, each on its own path, leaving behind a story in the path's footprints.

Judi Miller

"Bloodlines"
14"h x 10"w x 8"d, wire and photographs (printed on cotton) stitched
$300

Bloodlines is a tumbled collection of photographs of the amazing pioneers in my our family, My husband's family left their homes in Italy in the early 1050's. Dreams and courage brought them a new life of hard work, perseverance and success. I travelled with my family to Canada in the late 1960's. Hopeful to build a brighter future and fulfill dreams.

Challenge Nine