Not many people have the ability to take a step back from themselves to have a hard look at what they’re about, but that is exactly what a Calgary artist did in 2007.
Doug Driediger cultivated the talent when he created one self-portrait every week for an entire year. All of those works are included in a new exhibit coming to the Okotoks Art Gallery.
The show, opening Sept. 16, is titled 52x8.5x11, which details first the numbers of works in the collection then the dimensions in inches of each piece. The 2007 series was not the first time the artist completed works repeatedly of the same subject matter.
“A couple of years earlier I had decided to make a promise to myself to be much more intentional about being consistent with my art making,” Driediger said. “I challenged myself to do a painting a day. I did a little tiny painting out my front window every day for a year.”
Soon unforeseen circumstances would have the artist painting a different view of the outside world.
“Along that journey I developed cancer,” he said. “I continued the process though all that from my hospital room.”
During his recovery from prostate cancer surgery Driediger came up with the idea for the 52x8.5x11 series. The painter, who is the driving force behind a successful graphic design firm in Calgary, said his cancer treatment ordeal left him with an increased desire for self-discovery.
“It (the cancer) caused me to look in the mirror in a different way,” he explained. “It wasn’t something that was expected. There was no family history for it.”
Wanting to take more time and pour more thought into each piece of the new series Driediger made it a once-a-week proposition. Soon he was regularly sending out electronic images of his self-portraits, which were created using a wide range of mediums on wood panels.
“I had a group of friends I thought I’d share this with,” Driediger recalled. “Each weekend typically I’d e-mail out what the week had produced along with a few notes of what I was thinking about and why I had produced what I produced.”
The artist confessed it didn’t take long for the list of recipients to grow as friends of his friends soon asked to be included in his weekly art deliveries. The eclectic 52 original works documenting Driediger’s year-long journey of self-discovery will be on display in the small gallery at the Okotoks Art Gallery (OAG) in The Station on North Railway Street from Sept. 16 through Oct. 30.
At the same time the large gallery will feature the exhibition Retro-active by BC artist Lou Lyn. The show is a retrospective of her first 18 years of combining glass and metal to produce unconventional sculpture pieces.
Many of the featured works done up in glass and bronze, were inspired by historical man-made artifacts.
“Tools and implements of the past have always interested me,” Lyn said. “It interests me how the makers of those tools made aesthetic decisions that weren’t necessary. If you look at stone tools that First Nations people made you can look at a dozen identically purposed tools and you’ll see some of them were done by an artist in their own right because they chose to embellish them.”
The artistic flourishes of past toolmakers may seem like an unusual place for a modern artist to draw inspiration, but for Lyn it has been gratifying. Her traveling Retro-active exhibition, which is making its final stop in Okotoks, has been well received wherever it’s been shown. Featuring both free standing and wall mounted sculptures, the pieces in the show are a radical departure from the usual glass artist practice of making intricate bowls and vases.
The opening reception for both the 52x8.5x11 and Retro-active shows is Sept. 16 at 7 p.m. For more information call the Okotoks Art Gallery at 403-938-3204.
