Christina MacEwen
sculpture 1990 - present

intro sculpture drawings technical contact

"What artists do is make a particularly skillful selection of fragments of cosmos
. . . bits chosen and arranged to give an illusion of coherence and duration amidst the uncontrollable streaming of events. An artist makes the world her world. An artist makes her world the world."
Ursula LeGuin,
Dancing at the Edge of the World


biography

Mac Ewen studied at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto (OCAD), Drawing and Painting, on scholarship; she holds a BA in Fine Art from the University of Guelph, and an MA, also on scholarship, in Printmaking and Ceramics, from the State University of Iowa. She has exhibited widely. Her work has been acquired by private, corporate and public collections in several countries, including China and Argentina as well as Canada. She has taught in the U.S.A. and Canada. Since 1974 she has lived and worked in Ottawa. She is married to the artist/printmaker William Danard. They have one daughter, Rebecca Danard.

For as long as I can remember I have made images. My love for clay is life-long. Galleries and museums, particularly the AGO and the ROM, were for me comfortable places with abundance to offer a curious child and a serious student. It has been my good fortune to study, from the age of thirteen, with some of North America's finest visual artists, including Frederick Hagan and Mauricio Lasansky (printmaking), Gustav Weisman (drawing and painting) and Jerry Rothman (ceramics).

There is no search for the found objects that characterize my sculptures. Many have been collected from the edges of rivers and lakes where their beauty has been augmented by long exposure to weather, fire and water. One walks with quiet awareness, day after day. One listens, trusting a sort of inner seeing. Some objects speak immediately; many do not.

Part of the process in gathering these fragments is the recognition of possible potential, even when there is no clear knowledge of how transformation may occur. One waits. Found objects remain as a presence in the studio long before they are used. At any one time, two, three or even four sculptures are in progress. Most are worked intermittently over a period of months, sometimes over several years.

The work continues to grow and evolve. The intention of the creative process, for me, is not to produce a product but to honour our deepest experiences.

 
intro technical contact
  copyright 2012 - all rights reserved
Christina MacEwen