shannon gerard
My visual art practice operates across several platforms and media. I write, draw and publish in a variety of forms including on-line comics, periodical illustrations, trade-paperback graphic fiction, and self-published artist’s books and multiples. Thematically I am very curious about issues such as magic, hope, faith and human frailty. I also produce large-scale installations that incorporate stop-motion animations and digital print, and spend at least 50% of my waking life crocheting soft sculptures.
A lot of my work employs play as a research strategy. Areas of interest include the mindset of the collector, the sculptural and performative possibilities suggested by books and book-objects, the conceptual space that books occupy beyond the presentation of texts and images, and how the social position of works (in other words, where we tend to encounter particular modes of art) mediates how we become engaged as readers/viewers.
I am also really getting into marionettes.
I love to work with small gallery shops and retailers! If you are interested in carrying my crochet work or books, please contact me via email (shannon AT shannongerard DOT org, or click the envelope icon below) for wholesale prices and policies.
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projects
- UNSPENT LOVE
- BLOOD & THUNDER
- plants you can't kill
- BOOBS & DINKS
- PLAYING DOCTOR
- PLUSHTACHE
- anatomical hearts
- crocheted coral reef
- SWORD of MY MOUTH
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5 posts tagged BOOKS
THURSDAY JUNE 28, 2012
Come celebrate the launch of CAMP NANO and the Student Gallery’s SUMMER CAMP with a full day and evening of programs. Earn badges, sit by the campfire and nosh on smores and trailmix.
The OCADU Student Gallery is launching its inaugural SUMMER CAMP program! Each week until August 24 will feature a unique set of events including underwater photoshoots, friendship bracelet workshops, outdoor movie screenings and urban canoe trips. Check the Student Gallery website (www.studentgallery.ocad.ca) for details weekly.
// PROGRAM OF OPENING EVENTS // THURSDAY JUNE 28 //
WORKSHOPS // @ Carl Wagan in Butterfield Park (12-2pm)
PARTY // Celebrate at the Student Gallery (6-11pm)
CAMPFIRE // Get cosy by the fire in Butterfield Park (after sundown)
CAMP NANO brings together the diverse publications of students in NANO PUBLISHING, a hands-on course in OCADU’s Printmaking department that examines the nature, history and politics of independent publication with an emphasis on active community engagement, distribution models, and strategies for working outside of frameworks offered by mainstream media conglomerates and retailers. Using a variety of studio techniques including letterpress, screen, digital printing, and book arts, Art and Design students make zines and artists’ multiples, organize a public exhibition of their work, participate in local book related initiatives, and establish consignment relationships with local galleries and shops.
THE CARL WAGAN BOOKMOBILE is a traveling campervan of cosmic proportions. It is a gallery, printshop, studio, library, reading room, classroom, and community project—all contained within a 1988 VW Westfalia. CARL WAGAN promotes active engagement with book-based cultural activity such as self-publishing, zine-making, screen-printing, and bookbinding. Subtitled “The Spaceship of the Imagination,” CARL is partly a loving homage to the innovation of astronomer Carl Sagan whose passion for dreaming continues to inspire generations of thinkers. CARL WAGAN is an experiment in radical pedagogy—bringing the strategies, materials, ideas and dialogues of independent publishing to a wide variety of audiences.
**CAMP NANO and SUMMER CAMP are both generously supported by Aboveground Art Supplies**
There’s a short little piece up on Open Book Toronto about why I make “comics.”
Guess what!? I have a book coming out with Conundrum Press this October! A trade paperback version of UNSPENT LOVE that includes a new chapter, a new cover, and a new life as a super affordable little package of stories. Need some nudging in the old heart? UNSPENT LOVE will tap you on the shoulder, whisper in your ear, maybe even kiss you in that darling warm spot on your neck, and curl up under your pillow. Yep, it’s that kind of tender little thing. Details about the book launch SOON.
It has been so super working with Andy at Conundrum too. Look at the bio page he made this very afternoon.
In 2010, I received the incredible opportunity to develop Unspent Love as a multi-media bookwork through Open Studio’s Nick Novak Fellowship. The first 17 chapters were produced in this hand-bound volume that incorporates digital printing, screen, letterpress and buttonhole binding.
I normally sell this edition for $100, but this weekend at TCAF, I have it on special for $45
