"Artists create holes and openings in the universe" Mary Button Durell

In recent months there's been a fair bit happening ... in May a Residency at Plantbank which you can read about in previous posts... and at Seed Art Lab studio where I ran a series of workshops. 

Ten days knocked out with a virus slowed things down lately ... this week feels like I am just getting my stride again. Blogging is getting to be a rare event but I enjoy running into familiar faces at other sites and certainly anyone who does want a glimpse of whats been happening or to follow the Homage to the Seed project can LIKE my Homage to the Seed FACEBOOK Page for constant updates, news, artworks, related thematic material and abundant Seed themed posts.

Instagram is also where I post frequently these days: INSTAGRAM ~ SOPHIE MUNNS

Even though I've taken several thousand photos over the last couple of months I will have to find time to post those... in the meantime I loved this story about artist Mary Button Durell and invite you to read the whole article and look further into the website where a fav of many or us, Mari Andrews, has her story and work also featured. Enjoy!

Mary Button Durell

“Artists create holes and openings in the universe. They 

sidestep the conventional, conditional, predictable and 

habitual, and they illuminate and connect different worlds.”

Quote from 'In the Make' - studio visits with West Coast artists.

Read entire article here.

Mary’s studio is in the Mission District in Project Artaud, an arts complex that includes three theaters and is home to over 80 artists and writers. I had briefly talked to Mary on the phone before our visit, and her exuberant, jangly voice prompted me to make a few pre-visit conclusions: I figured she’d be a bit of a character with a healthy dose of nervous energy and a propensity to laugh easily and heartily. I have to say, I pretty much hit the mark. Mary’s a lot of fun to be around— she’s totally unpretentious, gesticulates wildly, and swears like a sailor. Somehow people who swear make me comfortable— maybe it’s because I assume they aren’t holding back and they’re coming at me just as they are, without obligatory formalities weighing them down. Mary’s unaffected way of being comes through in her art practice as well. There’s a rawness and simplicity to her materials, she essentially only uses tracing paper and wheat paste, and her inspiration often comes in the form of singular, unexpected visions. Though her process can be incredibly time-consuming it is decidedly straightforward, and yet it produces layered, imaginative, amorphous pieces that hint at the complexities and fragilities of humanity and the natural world. Mary’s been working with tracing paper and wheat paste since 1998— that’s a long time, and part of me wonders how she hasn’t gotten bored, or stuck, or indifferent along the way. Yet despite knowing her materials so intimately, Mary is constantly renegotiating the terms of her work, implementing new strategies and tactics that test where and how far she can go. Because Mary deals with just the essentials, pushing her materials is crucial, and every tweak, stretch, and pull makes all the difference.