Artists in the Window Marty Ritchie: Demonstration and Exhibition

×

Expand

Martha Jane Ritchie, "At Work," 2020

The printing new levels of isolation

Haines Junction-based artist Martha Jane Ritchie will be relief printing with a rice paddle, exploring how to recreate her exhibition postponed last spring, in the window at Yukon Artists @ Work the second week of August, contrasting different kinds of solitudes.

Ritchie spent four and a half months last winter at the Ted Harrison Artists’ Retreat near Carcross. She carved 60 blocks to print in, and took 100 dips in the lake, hacking a hole in the ice with an axe in order to do so. During the chosen isolation of the residency she found the space to define herself as an artist first and foremost, in contrast with her usual life, where roles of wife, mother and community member take up more of her time and energy.

Out of this time of chosen isolation and work, Ritchie planned three exhibitions, at Arts Underground, Baked, and the Yukon Artists @ Work Gallery. Then Covid struck. Only the exhibition at Arts Underground saw the light of day, and “Spring is for the birds” remained in the dark in the closed gallery for most of the spring.

Ritchie’s show at the Yukon Artists @ Work Gallery has been rescheduled for October 2020. She will spend her time in the window mulling over how to adapt it to our changing times. She has the idea of presenting her work from the Ted Harrison Artists’ Retreat, which seems almost like another world, inside an enclosure made of 7 foot tall prints depicting trees. (After sanitising their hands,) viewers would be invited to go inside, sit on a stump, and flip through a portfolio of smaller prints from blocks she cut at the residency, in book form. Then prints outside that space would be more about our current Covid-altered world.

Come talk with Ritchie about your experiences as she prints and plans.

Find out more about Ritchie’s work at www.marthajritchie.wix.com\printmaker, or on Instagram #marthajaneritchie. Or find her on Facebook @Inky Fingers Art Studio And Gallery.

Marty Ritchie will be demonstrating in the Yukon Artists @ Work window August 11-14, 11-2 pm. You can also register for a Zoom artist talk with her, Thursday August 13 at 6:30 pm. Drop by YA@W, call 393 4848, or email yaaw@artlover.com to register.