Best in Show: Latcham Gallery Annual Juried Exhibition

Juror, Peter Flannery, Assistant Curator at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery confers my Best in Show Award to a full house of supporters, March 4, 2020.

And the winners are: (left to right) Gallery Curator, Alexandra Hartstone, Lo Scott (sculptor), Heidi McKenzie (sculptor), Peter Flannery (juror), Stephanie Porter (juror) …

Sharron Forrest with her ‘cutting edge’ work!

Making new connections with other exhibiting artists - Joanna Strong’s work is about her mixed-race children.

Heidi’s House of Cards

“House of Cards speaks to the precarious nature of my late father’s life as an immigrant from Trinidad who came to Canada in the early 1950’s and facing at times violent racism, while simultaneously serving as a metaphor for the fragility of his own human vessel and ongoing health struggles. It literally documents through archive the burdens of his story: imprinted with iron-oxide on porcelain ceramic substrate, this “house of cards” also references his passion for bridge, and his steadfast dedication to building a home for his family. ”

Friends from Pinetree - Sharon and Penny!

Circular Dimensions with Maya Foltyn @ Carnegie Gallery

It was an honour and a pleasure working with Maya Foltyn and her family on this dialogue between her paintings and drawings and my sculptural work - inspired from my time in Australia, in 2017, including works made at Medalta 2019 and newer works from my Parkdale kiln. Check out the complete series Spaces Within

We had an amazing crowd of over 60 people who came out and stayed and spent quality time talking to us and asking lots of questions - on the opening, Friday February 7th

“In 2017 I embarked on my “Spaces Within” series. This work reinvigorates modernism in our times, and engages issues of race and identity, seeking to transcend Eurocentricism. The hollow negative spaces represent a simultaneous sense of loss, renewal, and overall belonging.
— Heidi McKenzie”

About 30 souls came out for our Artist Walk-Through and Q & A at the Carnegie on February 23rd, 2020

Maya describing the use of bitchumen in her drawings during the Q&A

Heidi describing her experience of James Cook’s observation of “terra nullius” when he discovered Australia - negating the existence of Indigenous People’s - in the face of the evidence of abalone fish hooks found on the site.

A look into, around, and within Circular Dimensions

This monograph was written by Agnieszka Foltyn based on interviews she had with each of the artists, myself and Maya Foltyn. Circular Dimensions opens Friday, Feb.7th, 7-9pm. Artists’ Walk-through Sunday Feburary 23, 2pm.

"...The practices of Heidi McKenzie and Maya Foltyn touch and separate, intersect and cross over, flow in parallel and divide in separate directions. These are not linear trajectories but rather circular or cyclical meanderings, stimulated and affected by the machinations of society throughout time. They are dreams, thoughts, extensions of a willingness to understand or to come into contact with the unknown...."

Body Within @ CUTMR2020, Gladstone

“The room was so beautifully
set up with the different media balancing themselves out and inter-connecting. I think what distinguishes you as an artist is the solid conceptual-emotional base from which your work emerges. I watched people come into the room and immediately recognize the prescient humanity emanating from your art. They were drawn to look and contemplate and feel. That comes from a lot of feeling and cogitating before and during the time when you put your hands in the clay.”
— Rosalind Gill, Author

A driving force in my sculpture practice is my lived experience of chronic pain and chronic illness coupled with the triumph of healing and living one day at a time. For over 20 years I suffered severe fibromyalgia and I have been living the fall-out of my congenital kidney disease for over thirty years. In 2015/2016 I had unexplained lower abdominal pain, which left me bedridden for weeks. I underwent countless tests to eventually discover a partially blocked femoral artery after eighteen months of investigation. I am living pain-free today, my incurable kidney disease in remission.

Surprise! Sunday at 5:30pm I was awarded a Designlines “Love Tag” for one of the “coolest exhibitions in Design TO” from an editor at Azure Magazine.

From January 16 - 19 over 2000 people “came up to my room” to experience my solo exhibition, Body Within at the Gladstone Hotel’s Design TO event. I put together a flyer of information mapping out the room - and am including this information in bits and pieces along with photography by Gabby Franks - candids and video documentation my own.

the architectural blueprint of the room that I curated/exhibited within with a guide to the works displayed - NOTE: 2 was in the diagonally opposite corner - planning on paper isn’t always what happens during installation.

I began my sculpture practice at Sheridan College, weaving self-portraits of the paradox of the way one looks versus the way one feels with twisted bands of clay. In the spring of 2018, I was invited to Kecskemet, Hungary to participate in a one-month symposium alongside six Canadian ceramic artists and seven Hungarians on the theme of “Muscle Memory.” Many of the exhibited works are born of this experience. (*) The new works in this exhibition are the result of my gathering of images from six hospitals over the last ten years.

Disembodied

1. Disembodied* 2018, stoneware, wood fired,70cm x 40cm x 5cm. This piece emerged from the ashes of the wood firing at Kecskemet in Hungary. It integrates my healing crisis in graphic abstract representation through process: the wood-fired iron-oxide rich stains allude to the scars and muscle memory of my ongoing struggles with the corporeal. $3,750 CDN + HST

3. Life Force* 2018, Ceramics, various, gas, wood, raku, electric fired; wall-mounted, each pair of kidneys approximately 25cm x30cm x 3cm; with audio soundscape of breathing, new composition for Body Within, “I AM HERE” by The Ambient Orchestra. Each pair represents a seven-year cycle where the body fully renews itself.
$3,750 CDN + HST

4. Lurking* 2018, 60cm x 80cm x 5cm, stoneware, porcelain slip, wall-mounted, archival home movies of the artist circa 1968-1972. This multi-media work embodies my organs in relief on a “blank slate” of porcelain-washed multipart “screen”, overlaid with video imagery of myself as an innocent newborn and toddler. $4,500 + HST.

Body Imaged

7. Body Imaged 2020, 42 porcelain substrate, 4.5” x 6.5” each, inkjet decals. This new work, inspired by Come Up to My Room is a testament to the extensive testing I have undergone over the last decade, from CAT scans, MRIs, X-rays, ultrasounds, ECGs and brain scans. $4,750 + HST.

Betrayed

2. Betrayed* 2018, stoneware, glaze, wood-fired. 37cm x 21cm x 10cm. This work is part of my formal modernist sculpture series “Spaces Within.”  The hollow negative space depicts the human bladder – its rawness and aggravated state are reflected in its colour and the inflamed process of firing the work itself. $1,200 + HST

Life Force (wall); Anima Worn (plinth)

5. Anima Worn 2012, 50cm x 50cm x 50cm (variable), stoneware, gas fired. While at Sheridan College (2010-2012) I developed a technique of twisting bands of thrown clay. Until then, I had suffered silently with the invisible chronic pain of fibromyalgia for decades. This work represents my cathartic process in healing both the pain and its associative shame. $4,500 + HST

Body Interrupted

6. Body Interrupted 2016/2020, 15 “cubes” 11cm x 11cm x 11cm, installation variable, slip cast porcelain and ceramic decal. I began this work after my healing crisis, 2014-2016. When I was unable to work on the wheel, I turned to slip casting to express the physical constraints of my body. Literally “boxed-in.” I have doubled the components of this piece for this exhibition. $3,750 CDN + HST.

The Wall of Inquiry (right); Betrayed (left)

8. Wall of Inquiry 2020, 70 letter size sheets, laser printed. This work was inspired by this room at the Gladstone Hotel, and the intent of Body Within, which is to give the viewer a sense of the overwhelm associated with my quest for healing. These are snapshots of a subsection of the tests that I underwent from 2009 to 2019. It also tracks the results of Ayurvedic treatment: I am living free of my “incurable” kidney disease.

“Body Within Artist Statement:
Using the media of clay, film and sound, this multi-part installation asks the question – what is it like to embody a human vessel that is invisibly fractured? Through abstraction, I share my experience and catharsis of chronic fibromyalgia, spontaneous collapsed lung, partially blocked femoral artery, congenital kidney disease and living with a compromised immune system. Some days feel full of struggle and defeat; other times I am filled with gratitude, serenity and optimism. I have created these works: their very existence affirms that “I am here.””

I would like to thank my husband, Ali Kazimi, for his unwavering support love and nourishment over the last twenty-five years. Thanks also to Emmanuel Albano for his hand in finalizing the video, Rosalind Gill and Arlene Moscovitch for their keen editorial input. Special thanks to Anil Hardit-Singh for his vision in composing the soundscape, I AM HERE. Thanks also to Toni Olshen, Jennifer Moore and Maya Foltyn for their selfless efforts on my behalf. Thanks also to the amazing team at the Gladstone: Nicki, Jacob, Alex, and the ever-able superwoman, Lee Petrie. Thanks also to Megan Feheley for her wisdom and guidance.

Soundscape by Ambient Orchestra  www.TheAmbientOrchestra.com   
Twitter   @AmbientOrch.  Soundcloud @AmbientOrch

This project is supported by the Ontario Arts Council’s Exhibition Assistance Program.

Promo Video - CUTMR 2020

Exhibition Dates
January 16 – 19, 2020

Come Up To My Room (CUTMR) is an annual 4-day alternative design exhibition created and produced by the Gladstone Hotel. It’s one of the only places where art and design intersect, with the historic hotel becoming a platform for site-specific installations. Visitors can explore, discover and engage in conversation with the artists. Different from our 37 permanent artist-designed hotel rooms, CUTMR presents temporary projects that occupy and alter spaces in dramatic, conceptual, or experimental ways.

CRAFT FORMS Coverage: Chester County Life, 2019

For more information on Craft Forms Exhibition - check out my Exhibition Blog Coverage.

Award at CRAFT FORMS 2019 Philadelphia

Jane Milosch presenting the Award of Merit in Ceramics at Craft Forms, Wayne Art Centre, Dec. 6, 2019

I recently returned from Philadelphia where my ‘House of Cards’ was exhibited alongside eighty other fine craft artists’ work at CRAFT FORMS 25th International Juried Exhibition of Contemporary Fine Craft at the Wayne Art Centre. The show was juried by Jane Milosch, Founder and Director of the Smithsonian Provenance Research Initiative. I captured The Award of Merit for ceramics.

Exhibition runs from December 7 to February 1, 2020.

Twenty artists were present to deliver brief remarks at the public opening on December 7th.

I had a chance to speak about my work, ‘House of Cards’ as a tribute to my father’s life as an early immigrant to Canada,

and some of the racialized experiences he endured, to build his home in a new country - the fragility and the strength.

Heidi Artist Talk Craft Forms 2019 from Heidi McKenzie on Vimeo.

‘House of Cards’ Award-winning installation representing my father’s journey and life as a new Canadian from Trinidad in 1953 to his passing, 2016.

'Toronto Makes' Hardcover Guide to over 50 Artisans

“McKenzie describes much of her work as abstract portraiture, which allows her to reflect on a wide range of cultures and conditions in a ‘non-figurative, abstract, minimalist art that everyone can relate to.” McKenzie’s process is equally fluid, oscillating between hand-built sculpture and the slipcast or wheel-thrown functional wares currently sold at ceramic shops worldwide. “My work is really disparate, but I like the variety,” she says. “lots of potters have a signature look and they’re making that ten hours a day for twenty years. I’m not that person I like to switch things up constantly.”

— excerpt by Randi Bergman

“Even my pots.. they’re not just pots, they’re an expression of a story I have inside of me.” Heidi McKenzie”

---

“Heidi McKenzie, Est. 2012”

Toronto Makes: The Things We Love and the People Who Make Them
Randi Bergman, pp. 98-101.

This is a page spread in a lovely coffee table book that just came out!
For Sale on Indigo and Amazon and at Heidi’s gallerist, Guildworks in Prince Edward County.

Water selected as "Best Of" Cluj International Ceramics Biennale

My work, Water, my largest work to date, weighed in crated at 100lbs was created at Medalta in Medicine Hat, Alberta, winter 2019. Water was selected to part of an ongoing touring exhibition of “best of” the Cluj-Napoca International Ceramics Biennale. More details to follow…

Special Thanks to the Ontario Arts Council through Harbourfront Centre Crafts and SAVAC for Exhibition Assistance in making this possible.

Interview with the Gardiner Museum: Family Matters

Intern Josie Slaughter interviewed me about my motivation for the body of work that showed over the summer of 2019 at the Gardiner Shop: Family Matters.
Read the Interview

“[This work] is about telling the stories of who I am and where I came from. It’s about locating myself in a virtually monolithically white milieu as a child; about telling the stories of my parent’s struggles in the face of often violent racism; about really seeing who these people were in my past – both sets of great grandparents posturing to emulate a notion of ideal Victorianism – one as the colonizer, the other as the colonized. It’s all these things, and all of these things are about identity and culture, which is central to my sculpture practice.”

The Australian Ceramics Triennale Tasmania

I was invited to present, exhibit and curate around the theme of “Decolonizing Clay” at The Australian Ceramics Triennale Tasmania from May 1-4, 2019. I stayed on for another week, then a couple more in Australia and hopped home via Beijing and Vancouver. This is my missive out to my email subscribers peppered with photos.

Hobart feels like Halifax.

I am sitting on a plane, the last leg of my seven-flight, five-week journey that took me to Tasmania, through Melbourne and Sydney, via Beijing, Vancouver and now heading home to Toronto. I was invited to present, moderate and curate around the theme of ceramic artists of colour making place and holding space to tell their own stories at the Australian Ceramics Triennale in Hobart, Tasmania. I was fortunate to receive Canada Council funding to bring this vision to reality, and was thrilled to work with my fellow panelists, Arun Sharma (a Sydney-based American sculptor I had met on my last trip to Australia in 2017), and Neville Assad-Salha, a veteran maker and Lebanese-Australian currently relocating to Adelaide. Our panel drew an impressive audience of over half the delegates, estimated at 350 – and what stayed with me, were the half a dozen or so young Australian artists of colour who came to me over the next few days to tell me that they had been moved to tears – tears of relief and of joy – to hear other racialized artists, similar to themselves, speak our truths, honestly, without confrontation, blame or shame, but with steadfast pride.

Neville Assad-Salha, Heidi McKenzie, Arun Sharma - the participants/exhibitors in Decolonizing Clay

I had a great time hanging with the gaggle of Canadians who made to the Triennale at MONA. Grace Nickel and I spent the day soaking up the experience of the Museum of Old and New Art, which more than lives up to its reputation. I found myself drawn to write about the largest glockenspiel in the world.

Possibly the most compelling work of art at MONA, The Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart - as the water falls, it spells random words - it’s beautiful and genius.

Hobart feels a lot like Halifax and a little like St. John’s. I signed up for a five-day whirlwind tour of Tasmania post-conference – three weeks later I found myself on Vancouver Island touring its south shore – and I realized why the cool temperate rainforests of Tasmania were so familiar – they are astoundingly similar to the wilderness of the west coast of BC! – which in no way diminished the awe-inspiring beauty of either natural wonder. Ceramics is truly an international community – a friend from Jingdezhen, Diana Williams hosted me in Melbourne and then I was onto Sydney – to be feted with Mitsuo and Chris Shoji in grand style, a dinner with Trudy Golley and Paul Leathers and plenty of time with my former studio mate, Szilvia Gyorgy, and squeezed in the symphoney at the Opera House with Giti Dutt. I had a brief 52-hour layover in Beijing, and was blessed with warm sun, yet high winds which whisked away any threat of harmful pollution. I took a day-tour of the least touristy part of The Great Wall, checked that off the bucket list, and spent the rest of my time wandering the Forbidden City and ducking in and out of contemporary art galleries in the798 Art District.

The venue was at Princess Wharf No. 1 - over 1000 pieces of ceramic art under one roof!

I arrived in Vancouver two days before my husband was to receive his honourary doctorate for outstanding contribution to community from UBC. It was a full week of festivities which brought me to tears of pride and joy. We were blessed to have his mother and his brother with us. We managed to pack in quite the social calender, check out most of the major ceramics scene in town (thank you Debra Sloan, my Vancouver ceramic guide) and visit with my mentor, Ying-Yueh Chuang.

Home is a mere few hours away – and I feel as if I haven’t really been there since the New Year. I have some work to get to this month with a solo show opening in the Gardiner Shop in early July, and I’m really looking forward to getting my hands back into the mud. Already planning a return trip to the Northern Territories for the next Australian Triennale in 2022.

Missive #3 Home from Medalta in the Historic Pottery District

My solo exhibition on Feb 25th in the beehive kiln, “it will be what it will be” -

I started the last missive just past the three-quarter mark. I was busy making lemonade from lemons and had lifted myself out of the inevitable funk of disappointment that tends to transpire when you work with new clay, new kilns, and new creative endeavours. Cracks were mended, alternative techniques tested and I was buoyed by the credo that my wise friend, Harlan House sent round at the time: “You can always do it better. And until you’ve done it a thousand times you haven’t done it.  Until you can fix it you haven’t done it at all.” (Claudia Fleming, baker). The glass half-full, turned out to be a glass overflowing with learning and somewhat to my astonishment, achievement. I managed to create my “new-modernist” forms at large scales without kiln explosions, and put on a solo exhibition in a beehive kiln. I have left the work to be professionally crated by a past resident and now am actively shopping it around as, alas, David Kaye Gallery was forced to close its doors in the New Year.

Many of the highlights of Medalta for me were the people that I connected with over my time. I already mentioned Jim Marshall, the brick muralist who lives across from the artist lodge. I had the opportunity to more time with him, and I am looking forward to writing a profile about his life and work for an upcoming issue of Ceramics Monthly. I am writing this a a week after I left Medicine Hat – and I’m already nostalgic for the dry cold, the charming repertory cinema, the surreal small-town kareoke and the comraderie of new friends who are “in the know” when it comes to transforming mud. It was an honour to work alongside veteran scuptor, Grace Nickel, and watch the year-round residents as well as Heather Lepp, who arrived with me on New Year’s, flourish over such a relatively brief time. We weathered some rocky times and we all braved the -30C+ windchills, all of us except many of the vehicles who refused to perform in the permafrost. I believe I became somewhat cavalier about the deer waltzing by my window.

Jim Marshall with “the gang” in his studio with his latest mural in progress.

Noriko Masuda our fearless studio leader - crutches and all.

I left Medalta knowing that I will return. I am full of ideas that need to come to fruition in the particular alchemy of the place. I am on a train returning from Montreal, having taught half a dozen potters some of the tricks of the trade with coloured clay, and done a whirlwind tour of the contemporary art scene. I look forward to getting grounded, reconnecting with friends and hunkering down for the upcoming season of grant deadlines, planning and scheming – and getting my hands dirty back in the studio.

Until next time, Medalta - I loved your frozen warmth!

Missive #1 from Medalta, Medicine Hat

The landscape is an adjustment, but I’m learning to love it. Anwar said it best “beauty in the bleakness.” Truly. The deer are virtually unphased by humans, as are many of the multitude of bunnies jetting around. And the magpies are mammoth! I’m serenaded every morning by vociforous Canada geese on my 20-minute walk over bridges and creeks to the studio. Generally I pack a lunch and head over mid-morning for the day, work until 7 or 8pm, come back to the lodge and cook. The lodge is like a one story small school house converted into a residency with modern fancy kitchen but alas, until now, no working wifi. We are quite remote, and you need a car to really get anywhere, except the clay supplier who is walking distance – but I can’t walk my clay home! Their technician is the fabled Tony Hansen of Digifire, and he’s a veritable wizzard. I’ve struck up quite the friendship with Tony and he’s helping me out a lot with my testing.

I’m not used to the society of group artist residencies – planned pizza and waffle sessions, spontaneous outings to the Cypress Hills. There are about nine of us, seven in the lodge, and most other artists here are just out of school and in their mid twenties. There are a couple in my snack bracket, and I’m enjoying getting to know all of these committed artists and their passions. 

The creek that winds it’s way to the Saskatchewan River that I pass on my 20 -minute walk from the residency to the ceramics centre.

It takes a village to put together a 50kg sculpture!

It’s been two weeks since I arrived in Medicine Hat. Wow – it seems like a lot has happened in those two weeks, and at the same time, I feel as if I’m struggling and time is already bearing down on me. I came with the intention to build big and the expectation that I would make high fired work (something I can’t really do at home) and gas fire (another thing I can’t do at home). But what I have found is that the low fire sculpture clay has amazing qualities that make it by far a better choice.  BUT – it’s limiting me in terms of surface decoration due to it’s high fired porosity. I’m exploring and investigating and making a zillion test tiles – and regret not starting there as my work stays under plastic until I’m ready for it and the air is SO SO DRY!!!! Apoloigies for the shop talk, moving on.

view of the brick factory from the top of the hill that I look up to from my window

The whole brick factory operation flooded so badly in 2010 that it wasn’t worth rebuilding. It’s a fascinating relic that will soon be converted into a tourist attraction. Jim Marshall lives in the old tile factory office right in front of my window, which is next to the defunct brick factory. Jim is 80, and aside from my friend Peter, the fittest most active octagenarian around. He’s still sculpting brick murals internationally and currently building a replica of an 1880 train on site. It’s also a treat to have an old Sheridan friend here to show me around, Annette Ten Cate, who took me to the Banff Film Festival last night. There never seems to be a dull moment. Today we had a field trip to the Medicine Hat Archives and an idea of working with archival images of the brick factory (similar to the one my father worked in in Hamilton) is fomenting in my mind. 

The oil rig that was INSIDE the brick factory - is now a work of public art outside the factory - Medicine Hat nickname, Gas Town.

Completed the building of my first large-scale coil built sculpture. Prepping my artist talk to the staff and other artists for tomorrow. It’s full-on here and not as cold as I had anticipated – although felt like Toronto: 96% humidity! 

Missive #2 from Medalta, Medicine Hat

Mireille Perron cyanotype of glass birds with branches

Back at the studio, I’ve been busy building the large abstract paisley shape that I have had in my mind’s eye for years. It’s 30” tall – picture included and just started it’s slow drying process (which is no small feet in this unbelievably dry climate!). Starting today to research imagery for these pieces. We are amidst a shuffle of residents as the Portland sculptor and Calgary-based conceptual artist have left and we receive the head of the University of Manitoba Ceramics department, Grace Nickel tomorrow. I look forward to getting to know Grace, and have been following her career for years – she will be presenting in Tasmania with me in May! I also managed to connect with the new Executive Director of the Crafts Council here, Jenna Stanton, who will also be in Tasmania.  It’s a global community – to be sure.

getting a little help with Paisley Uprooted

Nur Rodriguez making 1094 cups, underscoring the hoops New Canadians face in this country.

Two full weeks have flown by. I have just returned from a whirlwind 24-hour jam-packed, art-filled and networking intense trip to Calgary with fellow resident Rob Froes. We went for Mireille Perron’s opening and managed to squeeze in four other galleries, two curator meetings, the Alberta College of Art and Design’s renaming ceremony (now Alberta University of the Arts), and a whole bunch of great new friendships.

playing with engobes and Plainsman new dark clay

I’m just deciding to work with some of the locally sourced clay and push my dinnerware series a bit while I’m here on the “down cycles” when my large pieces are firing. I’ve just received my tally of 20 test kiln firings – I have been really busy sorting out glazes and surface decoration, and am still on the hunt for the definitive results.  Such a treat to have a small test kiln to whip up a few tiles in.

I have had a chance to play anthropologist/ observer week before last when I attended several of the Tongue on the Post Folk Music festival events and concerts.  The Medalta Potteries was the main site for the evening and weekend events, and there were free café concerts all day all over town (I managed to get to one with my Sheridan days bud, Annette Ten Cate). Preliminary conclusions – Medicine Hat continues to feel nostalgic and similar to growing up in Fredericton. I look forward to one or two more day trips, but am really buckling down and getting the work produced that I came here to make. I already have an idea for locally rooted work that I’d love to come back to realize some time in the next decade…we’ll see. Once you come to Medalta, it’s hard to ever really leave.

Tongue on the Post Folk Music Festival with Annette ten Cate

Warmest from the coldest – and it is REALLY cold here this week, and waiting for the next chinook.

Heidi