Alchemy Artist Residency: Table Settings, 2021

In June of 2021 I spent two weeks participating in Alchemy Artist Residency, Table Settings, in Prince Edward County. It was a wonderful and a highly successful experience.  I appreciated the Alchemy introduction and partnership with Tim and Micheline Kuepfer of Broken Stoney Winery. This was my third experience with Alchemy Artist residency and my second time in Prince Edward County.

Broken Stone Winery

I spent many mornings at Broken Stone Winery.  I had two focuses here: 1. Experimenting with cyanotypes; and 2. Documentation of the ‘terroir’ and onsite flora.

My primary focus was to experiment with cyanotypes which was an eye-opening project and allowed me to develop another form of creative voice. Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print. The process uses equal amounts of two chemicals: ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide.  I painted this on 10 sheets of 22 X 30 inches Stonehenge paper.

The second focus was documentation of very tight photos of anything that caught my attention and piqued my interest. I will use the documentation to create a series of paintings on canvases of various sizes.

Cyanotypes: I utilized found objects on the winery, as well as wild grape vines, Virginia Creeper and garden flowers sourced in Picton. My lack of experience with cyanotype allowed for ‘mistakes’ that worked in the imagery and helped me understand the limitations and potentials of the process. My first successful image used broken stones, strangle weed and wild mustard from the winery, basically the nemesis of Tim and Micheline’s work on the vineyard.  

I was happy with the image, but I knew I could develop sharper images.  

My next cyanotype I used a glass sheet to press the objects into the paper.

From here I looked at other processes, including ‘wet’ cyanotypes. This process involves spraying the prepared paper with a diluted mixture of vinegar and dish soap and adding sprinkles of various spices. I used turmeric and chili powder.  

Table Settings

I was scheduled to work with Claire Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, over my two-week residency. We met and collaborated on dinner plans. Claire knowing best what was available locally and what was best suited for the budget. I think we worked well together and each time, our timing got better and better so that by the end of the second week we were done well ahead of time.

I’m very particular about working in my kitchen. There are not many people I like working with me. My best friend and I have a great kitchen rapport. Keep my mother out of my kitchen (love you tho’). I would not have a problem working with Claire in my kitchen. I hope that while working in CCV kitchen (which is Claire’s!) that I was a good sous chef. I felt that my role was to support her vision and get it done. I did contribute with some of my own recipes (curry beef, basmati rice, rice pudding).

Workshop

With Claire’s help in the organizing, I held a workshop at the end of week one at BSW for local teens, Anika Kuepfer, Owen, and Julianna Tyers. I prepared cyanotype papers for all the participants (including Claire) and brought all the supplies. I shared my documentation methods (artwork on iPad) and the work I had done to date at the winery. They thoroughly enjoyed working with cyanotypes and created some interesting imagery. They all tried kinetic wind drawing, shadow drawing and sound imagery.  

Kinetic wind drawing involves attaching markers to low branches of a tree or bush with string and allowing the wind to make the marks. Shadow drawing is when you spend time tracing the suns movement across the paper. We traced the leaves of the apple trees. Sound imagery involves letting the sounds influence your mark making - actively listening to what’s happening around you.

Originally, I had planned to work on the lovely picnic tables (brought plastic to cover) but had completely failed to realize that the Friday afternoon was also the first time in the season that patios and wineries were open. The picnic tables had to be available for visitors. Luckily, Micheline had 6-foot plastic tables that were perfect to work from. Everything went very smoothly.

 To Sum up

Overall, I had an amazing experience. I’m quite happy working on my own and was able to get a lot done in my two weeks. I will have to say that I miss hanging out with other artists as in previous years. COVID will end and hopefully and another group residency will happen. I am grateful for this year’s residency and enjoyed my stay in the county so much!

An aside…I also kept in mind my previous time in the county with Alchemy residency in 2018. During that time there was a group of us staying in three different nearby homes. We visited Jamie Kennedy’s farm, tried his Pinot Noir, grown with his own grapes, visited the local market in Wellington, Stanners Winery, and Thyme Again Gardens to name but a few. We enjoyed incredible company, amongst ourselves and all the new people we met. I spent my time documenting my stay with photography and daily journaling in my diary and painting it on a 33-foot piece of Mylar.

 I brought the ‘Prince Edward County Daily Journal, 2018’ back to the county during this residency. When I could I documented the piece in different locations, including as many as the original sites that were documented in the painting. I kept a written journal this time around which will help inform the paintings I plan to do in the fall about Broken Stone Winery Terroir.