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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16 posts tagged xs
There’s a short little piece up on Open Book Toronto about why I make “comics.”
The anniversary of Junie Carter Cash’s death is coming up next week on May 15, so I learned this song today. Among her uncountable gifts, Junie, one of my all-time-most-treasured Lady Heroes, gave me the word “turble.”
Yes, this mortality thing is dern turble.
Junie, always in my heart, talkin’ with ‘er mouth!
Updates coming soon to This Machine. Text and Image students, the audio post above is your prompt for the week. Responses from anyone else are welcome too!
Thanks to Rachel Anne Farquharson for this great review of PINK PEARL at Art Barrage!
Today is the first day I feel like I am getting the hang of strumming. It must be the good feeling still lingering from last week’s Book Launch. I put pictures up over at yonder Unspent Love.
Several times in the past weeks, I have been moved to tears thinking about the enormous impact of Jack Layton’s life on so many of us. He exemplified for me what it means to be a true visionary leader. Last week a colleague commented that he hopes other politicians will take note of how thirsty people are for genuine, deep connections. I wholeheartedly agree. With school starting again, I feel privileged to carry the practice of Jack’s optimism into my work and hope I can muster one fraction of the enthusiasm he had for life, the commitment he made to change, and the interest he showed in other people.
Last term, my students challenged me to learn the ukulele, and I have been practicing a little on-and-off throughout the summer. I am still quite clunky as I have no teacher but the internet (and earnestness). After standing in attendance at Jack’s funeral, and hearing Stephen Page’s rendition of Hallelujah, I was inspired to try playing it too.
This is for you, Jack. I love you. And for you, O-kids. I love you even more.
Click the bar up above to hear my broken little version.
Well, I’m not a stud, but I was so happy to take part in this interview last year on Robin McConnell’s Vancouver-based radio program INKSTUDS. I’m moving into high gear now planning my second trip to the Left Edge to continue the research described at the end of this conversation. If you stick with this podcast past the sleepy beginning, you might like to hear us blab about Detroit, Sword of My Mouth, Unspent Love, autobiography, hyperbolic math nerding, and Blood and Thunder.
Click the green heading above to listen to our podcast.
The songs sprinkled in to the conversation relate in some circuitous ways to the content of the interview. The most interesting one is probably Making Believe by Ella Fitzgerald and The Ink Spots (ink spots, ink studs, samesamebutdifferent) because that was the only 45 my grandmother had to play in 1944 when my father was an infant. I like to think of it as the repeating soundtrack to her isolation as a young mum— one song to tell her story and drive her crazy.
Becky left for another journey today. She’s been gone only 2 hours and I feel so lonely already. Who will be my best friend in May and June? See you in California Becky!
Kyle Murray - Kyle's Letter to Art
THIS MACHINE KILLS FASHIONISTAS is a blog that collects all the best submissions from my students at OCAD University. It was started in a course titled Text & Image in 2011. The thoughtful, often moving responses to course assignments were too good to keep inside the classroom and inspired me to begin sharing works and ideas generated in all of my classes. Students, RTW!
The attached audio file is a song written and performed by Kyle Murray in response to the challenge of writing a letter to Art.
The blog title was inspired by Woody Guthrie’s famous warning:
Many thanks to Vanessa Nicholas for such a nice mention in her piece about TCAF for Canadian Art.
