Bridget's View

Bridget's View

12 x 12"

oil on cradled panel

© Nicki Ault, 2016

(commission)

Oh my, how much fun was this project?! It was actually a year in the making! Last September my art buddy, Monika Kinner-Whalen, and I were both part of the Solar Gardens Art Show and Sale in the country out near Pike Lake, Sask. It just so happened that my studio mate, Bridget Aitken, had recently bought a beautiful acreage in that area so Monika and I dropped by to take photos and enjoy in the scenery. That experience was fun and productive, so we decided to prolong the creative energy by agreeing to collaborate with each other. We selected a photo from that excursion (it was one of Monika's) which we would then each interpret in our own medium- mine being oil paint and hers being fibre!

Above is my effort... a painting which now belongs to Monika; we traded art on Friday. My wish is that she loves it and finds hope and friendship in this piece every time she looks at it. I am happy with the neutral, grayed-down backdrop with the brighter orange and red foliage in front. I so desperately wanted her to love it when she saw it. I do think she was pleased because as the day went on I kept getting Facebook messages with her "auditioning" it in different rooms of her house!

I am so thrilled with the piece she created for me. It is called "September Three Sixty" which is fitting because Bridget's acreage has a height-of-land where Monika and I stood and literally turned in a three-sixty while taking resource photographs.

September Three Sixty
5 x 5"

© Monika Kinner-Whalen

In her version she decided to edit out the branches in the foreground because they would have taken away from the delightful stitch-work that developed along the bottom of the piece. I agree and I love looking at her type of "mark-making".

photo © Nicki Ault, 2016

Please do yourself a favour and browse through Monika's blog and website. I also wrote a "spotlight" on her a few years ago which you can read here. As it turns out, in that bog post I mentioned how much I hoped to have a piece of her work someday! I actually now have not one, but two of her pieces because I bought a gorgeous, abstracted yarn work from her solo show at Hues Art Supply in June called "A View From Shelby's Garden". Yay me!

photo © Nicki Ault, 2016

Thank you Monika! It was fun and I will always cherish both of these unique pieces created by you!

Note: Here is a link to Monika's blog where she writes about our swap!