March AWE at Night

By: Sarah Murphy

Art Windsor-Essex holds an AWE at Night community event on the third Thursday of every month. Admission is $10 and members get in free. Those in attendance are invited to participate in a craft in the second-floor studio, various tours and discussions, and a gathering on the third floor complete with food and drinks from WindsorEats and music from the UWindsor based radio station, CJAM 99.1 FM!

The March AWE at Night event included making seed bombs with the support of The Bloomin’ Gardener, a talk by curator Nadja Pelkey and artist Sara Graham about her new exhibition, and a guided tour of Rick Leong’s exhibition.

The seed bomb activity gave participants a chance to get their hands dirty and do a craft that will continue to grow. Seed bomb materials to grow wildflowers in communities were provided by The Bloomin’ Gardener to bring beauty and life to Windsor this spring. There were 12 different types of wildflower seeds used and they were all indigenous to the local area so as not to interrupt any natural ecosystems. Most people who came in made 3–5 balls and though there were many spectators at first, many of them came back later in the night when they were ready to get their hands muddy and try it themselves.

Sara Graham’s new exhibition, Cut-outs, Offcuts, and Cast-offs, was curated by AWE’s Nadja Pelkey and contains work from multiple projects Sara has worked on, as well as new pieces created for the show. In their talk, Nadja and Sara discussed some of the inspiration behind the pieces and the process of creating the exhibition, as well as a bit about Sara as an artist. Here is a snippet from the conversation:

Sara: “I am primarily a drawer, so I see my practice rooted in drawing. Everything I make, to me, is a form of drawing. These started off as drawings, but I knew that I wanted to make them more sculptural or at least like photographic panels. Once I kind of constructed all of these, I had all of these kind of off casts, or parts of paper once I had cut them out. Normally that is garbage for quite a lot of people, but then all of a sudden, because I had made all of this paper with all of the ink line work, I decided, I think I’m going to start with all these off casts and I’m going to then make this work. So that’s sort of how this work fits into it; it’s all of the debris from the debris!

Nadja: “From all of the debris! And I think, too, that that sort of points to this really interesting process in your work. I think sometimes when we think of art, we talk about creation and making and really, I think the primary operation in your practice is noticing. It’s really a practice of looking and noticing and spending time, and I think that, for me, these works are really an invitation to kind of slow down and spend time considering, you know, what is this, what could it be, what is the history of that? I think that the way that these works invite us to do that, they’re kind of inviting us into the way that you work, and I think that’s a really wonderful thing that this work can do.”

Following this talk, those in attendance had the opportunity to partake in a guided tour of Rick Leong’s exhibition, Hard Look Soft Gaze, explore the rest of the gallery’s exhibitions, and join WindsorEats and CJAM for food, drinks, and music in the Rodzik Gallery.

AWE at Night gives people in the community an opportunity to meet new people, engage with art, and see new perspectives, not to mention have a whole lot of fun! Make sure to join us at our next AWE at Night event on April 20 from 5–9pm!