The beauty in ordinary objects…Mary Pratt’s show, on now at the
McMichael Gallery, is full of wonderful glimpses of the world she saw around her
as she kept house and tended children in an isolated corner of
Meanwhile, two young Toronto
artists who both work in wood have also developed a fascination with the beauty of ordinary forms and functional objects, the delicate place furniture holds between engineering and
fine art and the many ways wood has been used over the years.
Invited to contribute to SMALL, a show that opened in the vitrines at Harbourfront last month, they took their inspiration from a photo that they discovered online from the Museum of Gears
Prior to the development of modern casting methods, wooden patterns were used
for gears, pressed into wet sand to make a mould which was then filled with
liquid iron or other molten metals. The gears were an important part of the heavy machinery that was in production following the industrial revolution.
Finding a surprising beauty in these patterns, Carey Jernigan and Julia Campbell-Such
began to conceive and render images of the moulds with off- cuts of wood found
in the shops where they work. The result
is a remarkable display of an old form with both the charm of natural material
and the spare elegance of an object important to the industry of its time. As
well as nostalgia for that time when craft was done with care by hand, the show
incorporates the economy of using discarded material in a creative way. 
Seeing everyday objects as having an inner beauty that
amplifies their importance and use in everyday life has long been a standard in
aboriginal art too, as has using available materials to create traditional
objects both valued and essential to everyday life. Check out the Raybans.
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