Meet the Artist September 14: Ellen Fraser
The largest room at MERA (McDonald’s Corners and Elphin Recreation and Arts) is the original one room school, now named Dean Hall in honour of Ankaret Dean, one of MERA’s founding members and still an active volunteer. Today, with its high ceilings, wainscoted walls and good lighting, the hall lends itself well as an art exhibition space. MERA has happily promoted it as such for several years, featuring local artists in shows that change monthly. In September, MERA welcomes art lovers to an Art Show and Meet the Artist Event Saturday September 14, 2pm to 5pm featuring the art of Ellen Fraser.
Ellen Fraser’s life’s work has been as a jeweler. She has always loved painting, drawing and designing jewelry. She started making jewelry as a young teenager and has been a professional jeweler since the late seventies. Her career path is well worn, she sold her work nationally in her early years, owned Cornerstone Gallery in Kingston for 15 years and has had occasional jewelry teaching contracts in Nunavut for 25 years. More recently, she has been enjoying using her metalworking skills on a larger scale. She started making copper mobiles for Kiwi Gardens’ annual outdoor art event Art in the Garden. She says it is like making earrings for trees! Many locals are familiar with Ellen Fraser’s work as a jeweler as she is now represented by Riverguild in Perth. View another side of this veteran artist at MERA this September, Ellen is showcasing some of her oil paintings – past and present, recent drawings and copper mobiles inspired by her jewelry practice.
“I have two parallel art practices: metalwork and painting. Both share a lively interplay with each other, and with the landscape I work or travel in. When I make jewelry, I sometimes fuse, stamp, hammer and colour metal to give a strong feeling of texture. In oil painting, I enhance the canvases with tactile qualities as well: to provide a receptive ground for oil paint that is textured, I attach folded and sculpted cloth or bits of lace and sequins onto a canvas with glue and gesso. Similar to the way I work with a patina on textured silver to create depth, I work with paint on the sculpted canvas in a process of applying and wiping off layers of colour. This method of embedding colour into the folds of cloth and recesses of texture gives the landscape imagery an abstract dreamlike quality.
Recently I’ve been drawing when I travel. I tend to like aerial views and underwater images, again somewhat abstract. I hook rugs, and wonder if the love of aerial views comes from that. The mobiles are a recent pastime. Making earrings to dangle in space was the perfect foundation for making kinetic sculptures. During my career as a jeweler, I’ve spent years forging simple silver shapes. Copper tubing is delightfully malleable in comparison to silver, and it’s been a delight to work with. I like the fluid shapes and how the composition changes as the mobile slowly turns.”
You are invited to join Ellen at the MERA Schoolhouse in McDonald’s Corners (974 Dalhousie Concession 9A) on Saturday September 14, 2pm to 5pm to meet the artist, view their works and purchase that “must have” piece. If you cannot attend the Meet the Artist event, to arrange another viewing time please contact Tim Booth timothybooth9@gmail.com.
