MARCH 4, 2010 ISSUE
Trash Art Treasures
Mother-Daughter Show of Recycled Materials at the NthËš Gallery Friday
(Top Picture) Ellen’s photographs of the process involved in producing locally made chocolate, displayed in a window frame, is one of the pieces to be found at Ellen and Elaine Gwin’s mother-daughter art exhibit titled tART: Trash Art that takes place at the Nth˚ Gallery in Boone this Friday, March 5. (Bottom Picture) A collection of Elaine’s insect sketches on cardboard coffee sleeves will also be on display at the show. Photos submitted
“We have such different talents but a common interest,” said Ellen Gwin of herself and her mother, Elaine. “We really enjoy trying to use what we can find.”
This Friday, March 5, the exhibit titled tART: Trash Art will feature photography, collage and mixed media, and will take place at the NthËš Gallery in Boone, beginning at 7:30 p.m. as part of the Downtown Boone Art Crawl. Some refreshments will be provided, but attendees are encouraged to B.Y.O.B.
Since the mother and daughter artists decided last fall to put on a collaborative show, they have focused their individual creative endeavors on using recycled materials and unconventional presentation.
“It’s all an experiment, but it’s been fun,” Ellen said, noting that the exhibit theme provides “plenty of leeway for both of us.
“We’ve both been reevaluating our trash,” Ellen said. “I’ve been to ReStore a lot, thinking of different ways I can use [items].”
The common artistic theme emerged in both Ellen’s photography and in her mother’s artwork around the same time, and the show “sort of fell into place in a great way,” she said.
“She’s done some collage work on logs,” Ellen said of her mother. “Our dryer broke, [and] she used pieces of the dryer to paint on.”
Her mother’s artwork has “an urban feel,” and drawing on cardboard coffee sleeves and painting on other “trash” items is “different for her,” Ellen said.
A 2005 ASU graduate, Ellen held her first photography show at the Jones House in 2004, she said.
“I did alternative processes for that one, [using] all kinds of creative surfaces,” she said, explaining that the show included cyanotypes, Kodaliths and photographs transferred onto copper.
Ellen’s six other shows have been mostly of photographs from her travels to Ireland and Wales, and featured traditionally matted prints. Although she likes that “clean” presentation look, Ellen said she also likes “to do something different that not everyone is doing.”
At the March 5 show, all Ellen’s photographs were taken locally and are “details that make up a whole of what it is [the subject] does,” she said, explaining that it is the little things around town that have kept inspiring her to take pictures.
These pictures will be presented in more unconventional ways—some photos will be mounted in old window sills, mugs with photos on them will be displayed on an old medicine cabinet, photos of a coffee shop will be hanging on coffee bags and photos of musicians will be displayed as transparencies mounted on corrugated metal from the renovations at Boone’s former Dragonfly, to name a few pieces, she said.
Her mother, who studied art at Virginia Intermont College, held her last show about two decades ago, when Ellen was about 8, and they are both excited about the upcoming show, she said.
An “art-bonding trip to New York” helped Ellen and her mother “appreciate each other’s backgrounds and interests,” she said. “I think since then, I’ve always wanted to do something [like this show] together.”
Her mother “gives good advice” and has helped Ellen with her past shows, she said.
Having an opening together has “definitely been a bonding experience,” Ellen said. “I want it to be successful and motivating for her, [and] I know she wants the same for me.”
Ellen, who was born in Boone and grew up in Winston-Salem and a number of small towns around the state, said that she has always been close to her mother.
“When you move a lot, that’s who you have,” Ellen said. “My mom and sister were my girlfriends.”
Growing up, “I had a hard time finding my thing,” Ellen said, explaining that both of her grandmothers, her sister and her mother were all artistic, talented in “everything in the drawing and painting realm.”
In middle school, though, Ellen’s aunt let her borrow a camera, and she has been shooting ever since, she said.
Everything at the show is for sale, Ellen said, adding that the goal from the beginning was “approachable, affordable art.”
Pieces will be affordable for both the “mature collector as well as a student,” she said. That way, she explained, anyone can take away something tangible from the show, in addition to the experience.
“People gravitate toward not always the place you expect them to,” Ellen said. “You can never predict people. I wonder what’s going to be the piece they talk about.”
Anyone interested in seeing the exhibit that is not able to make it out Friday night can contact Ellen because the exhibit will be up through Monday, March 22, she said. To arrange a viewing time, email sellengwin@gmail.com.
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