Artist explores practical home-decorating

The pairing of the words “accessible” and “art” created a fair amount of buzz amongst women of all ages who registered for Montreal-based artist Barbara Wisnoski’s anticipated seminar ‘Beyond Ikea Posters: Exploring Contemporary Art for your home.’

This informative event was held recently at the West Island Women’s Centre in Pointe Claire and hosted by visual artist Wisnoski, whose aim for the interactive afternoon seminar was to not only equip her participants with a more diverse understanding of contemporary art, but to also provide practical advice for how it could then be applied uniquely to their living spaces.

Wisnoski described contemporary artists like herself as “a segment of society whose job it is to play.” She said it is important for those eager to decorate to carry that same element of play into their efforts and to consider their bare walls as giant canvases to work with.

Though she has a huge appreciation for all eras and ‘isms’ of art, when it comes to decorating she advocates dabbling in the unexpected. Rather than cramming one’s walls full of predictable landscape prints or portraits from painters of the past, she challenges her participants to consider the alternatives.

That means investing in affordable pieces made by local artists, finding out about sustainable art mediums, even considering how empty space energizes a room or how repetition of pattern can heighten the mundane to magnificent. “Contemporary art is really about ideas,” she said, “you complete the meaning,” she added.

Wisnoski’s preferred artistic medium is textile, her art work resembles traditional quilts with a modern twist. The rough stitches on her fabric mosaics are intentionally jagged and these tiny imperfections seem to enhance the earthy quality of her work.

Hebe Penna, a Kirkland resident who attended the seminar, was pleasantly surprised at how vast the local art community is in Montreal, “I really enjoyed the resources that she gave at the end of the class” she said, adding, as a mother of small children, how important it is that women in the community know there are seminars and service like this available. “Women with small kids can feel isolated,” she said.

For more information on the West Island Women’s Centre, 70 Belmont Ave., and postings of their upcoming seminar, visit wiwc.ca. <@Cp>Jennifer Shenouda<@$p>