Shannon Fennell Artist

 

Well, that sucks.  We were informed a couple weeks ago (after hearing it first on the news!) that the University of Plymouth will be cutting programs and staff. In particular, as applies to me personally, the entire Fine Art program is being cut. They will be "teaching out" the currently enrolled students but over this summer they are cutting staff and resources, including closing the art gallery and movie theatre, to bare bones from the sound of it. My program (3-year part-time) thankfully is just wrapping up - due to changes in how the program was re-designed last autumn, we were going to be continuing on through the summer (the previous two years we were on a two semester schedule not three, but they wanted to align us with the one-year MA students.) But with the cuts, they decided those of us on our final part-time year would just wrap up NOW.  Which means, for us, no year end/graduate show, AT ALL. We were to have installed our final works for assessment in late August, ...

Our MA program residency wrapped up on Saturday after, officially, running for two weeks. Due to our schedules, not all of us were able to be in residence the entire time, but I think it went pretty well. I was able to set-up and work in situ for the second week. Here are photos of our various works/displays: Taken at the Private Viewing on Thursday evening: I had collaborated with two of the others. These were photographs by Scott Jenkins that I wove into these: And Anna Goodchild had a cyanotype she'd presented that we could all contribute to, and the public could add to it during the residency as well. I had cut off the bottom and wove it with my own work, and reattached it. Before everyone added to it: At the end of the residency:

     My MA Fine Art program has started our residency at GROW Plymouth. Some of us will be there everyday until the event on May 8th and the open days of May 9th & 10th. But… we are open while we are working on our projects too! If you would like to stop by to meet the artists, try your hand at creating something to add to a project (or keep,) and even participate as a model for a portrait you are more than welcome to stop by to see what we’re up to.     GROW is next door to The Box, across from the University of Plymouth and is at 14 Drake Circus, Plymouth, Devon.     I’ll be working on-site starting on Friday, May 2nd, from around 10 a.m. until at least 3 p.m. We’ll be closed on the weekend and bank holiday. Other artists will be there too, on their own schedules.

We had a group critique for our work to-date last week. I had taken in 10 of my pieces and three done in collaboration with a cohort. Seems that was overkill. Only half of our group showed up for it, so was very low key.  By far I had the most work put forward... and it wasn't even ALL of this year's collection of work. I've got more available and several WIP that weren't transportable. I assumed showing a selection of work that was going in different directions was better than not? I got the impression from the Prof that I should have "curated" it better.. I thought the reason for a crit was to get feedback and others' opinions of what I was considering to submit? Anyhow, consensus was these were everyone's preferred works. Made from weaving two A1 sheets of newsprint that I'd used to clean my brayers and knives while offset printing. I kept them and cut each in half, and wove the halves together. I was pleased with how they turned out as shapes a...

    The Group of Seven Depicting Canada’s Environment                The Group of Seven is Canada's first internationally recognized art movement. All Canadian school children have been introduced to their works at some point in the art curriculum, and they are front and centre in Canadian museums and art collections. Originally known as the Algonquin School, the Group of Seven was a group of Canadian landscape painters active from 1920 to 1933. Founding members were Franklin Carmichael (1890–1945), Lawren Harris (1885–1970), A.Y. Jackson (1882–1974), Frank Johnston (1888–1949), Arthur Lismer (1885–1969), J.E.H. MacDonald (1873–1932), and Frederick Varley (1881–1969).   A.J. Casson (1898–1992) was invited to join in 1926, Edwin Holgate (1892–1977) in 1930, and L.L. FitzGerald (1890–1956) joined in 1932. Tom Thompson (1877-1917) is often considered the most important member of the Group, even thou...

Kent Monkman – A Study in Identity Being a Canadian descended from European settlers, living on stolen land, I made it a priority to educate myself on the injustice and abuse of the Indigenous peoples of Canada. I read The Indian Act of 1876 and it made me sick. One of the many things that act formalized was the Canadian Indian residential school system which was funded by the Department of Indian Affairs and administered by various churches. The sole purpose was to “take the Indian out of the child” by removing them from their families, isolating them in residential schools far from home, forbidding them to speak their language, and indoctrinating them into the Euro-centric settler culture. But the physical, sexual and other abuses were horrifying causing generational traumas that are still impacting indigenous families. The number of children who are still missing, were killed or died while in the care of these schools is still not known, but graves are being found on former school...