Every year, attendees at the Sunflower Fine Art Craft Market have the chance to see a mix of favorite booths and first-time exhibitors. Three women who have just started a new venture took the opportunity to go to Sunflower with their art.
Jude McConachie, Moira Knight and Dorothy MacPhedran began painting with alcohol-based ink together in the past year. While just starting with the form, all three women have fallen in love with the art form and the freedom it represents.
“There are so many different styles when it comes to alcohol ink. We’re doing it on tile, but there are other things you can put it on, whether it’s glass or metal or paper,” McConachie says.
The partnership between the artists has them linked through the medium they use, but each one has a different style, ranging from calm prairie landscapes to exuberant flowers.
“The three of us do different styles, different ideas, and we get together, and get three or four pieces done in an afternoon,” said MacPhedran.
All three women love how the medium has a relative lack of control, as they feel more free to create and don’t have to worry as much about structure and can just use the ink to create. The form also allows for risk-free experimentation, MacPhedran says. If the artist doesn’t like what they created, they can literally wipe the slate clean.
“What I really like about this is being free, being able to put something down and making beautiful art from it. Putting down a splash of colour and making beautiful art from it,” Knight says.
MacPhedran is a potter, and also brought some of her pottery to the show as well. Mostly working in functional pottery, she also will try new ways to design her pottery, using things like horse hair and a mix of sugar, flour and water to scorch designs into the pottery during the firing.
“Like any hobby, you get into it and keep learning all the time, nothing is static.”
While this was the first time at Sunflower, MacPhedran says is was like showing at home, not the least because she went to school with some of the organizers and met several cousins at the event itself. They could not be happier with the event itself, from the assistance they were given at the time they registered to the organization of the entire event overall. They hope to be back next year.
