Janet Patterson: Artists in the Window - Five Easy Pieces

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Janet Patterson, "Five Easy Pieces," 2021

Janet Patterson: Artists in the Window - Five Easy Pieces

What are we doing with all this stuff?

Janet Patterson will be creating sculptures from donated objects and materials as part of the Artists in the Window series at Yukon Artists @ Work June 23-25, 11-2 pm. She plans to receive objects and use adhesive to create interesting and engaging pieces from them. She will exhibit other works from this series, entitled Five Easy Pieces.

Her series draws its title from the well-known film of the same name. For Patterson, though, the project speaks to the idea of our culture “being so free and easy with our things. We want things, buy them, tire of them, get rid of them, and often they end up in the landfill.

“It’s a way for me to remind people that each of those objects has a history, and there’s a story behind them, sometimes quite an extraordinary story, that’s worthy of more than being thrown in the garbage when we don’t want them anymore.”

Her plan is that over the three days she’s in the window, she will bring art supplies and glues, and start with objects that people have already given her. She hopes that other people will come by and bring more small unwanted objects for her to use. “What I make depends on what I am given.”

This art project challenges Patterson in many ways. There is the challenge of making art from whatever comes. But it has also cluttered up the artist’s studio space, which is usually fairly miminalist, with things piled upon things.

Like Patterson’s Unless exhibition of fishes made of found plastic, on display in the Yukon Arts Centre Community Gallery last winter, as well as Walk with Me, her exhibition of repurposed shoes, this project comes from her concern about what we’re doing to the planet.

She really does welcome you to come by and bring her five things, as long as they’re smaller than a breadbox. You can see her already created works in the window starting the evening of Sunday June 20.

You can find out more about Patterson’s work on Instagram, #janet_patterson_artist_page.

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