2020 Handcrafted Submissions | canvaspontiac

2020 Handcraft Submissions

TOP 25 from both Handcraft and Photography will be featured on Canvases throughout Downtown Pontiac!

1st to 3rd Place in Handcraft submissions have been selected by our 2020 Judges and are being held top secret until August 31st! The Top pieces are randomly sorted at the top of the gallery to help with keeping the secret.

PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD - Vote for your favorite from all handcraft art by giving it a ❤️! The Handcraft piece with the most hearts by 4 pm on August 31, 2020 will receive a community choice monetary award!

How to give a heart and place a vote:

On computers - hover over the image and a heart outline appears for clicking OR click on the image and a heart will be on the upper left.

On mobile - click on your favorite image and click on the heart in the upper right hand corner.

TOP 25 - Where The Grass Is Greener, Sky Chandler

In a time when a pandemic is challenging humanity, we must come together to help each other grow and persevere. For this piece, I used colored pencils and hard burnishing to create a background full of color and life. The figure is seen lying among the plants, relaxed with the sun on her face. When we push through and navigate the hard times, we will be rewarded with greener grass. Succulents are diverse, and full of different heights, shapes, sizes, and colors. We are too. All of them are resilient, and prosper, thrive, and grow towards the light. We will too.

TOP 25 - Make Yourself Free, John Gutoskey.

This mixed-media monoprint (with collage, maculature, pochoir, and alcohol gel transfers) from the series, â€œLiminal Landscapesâ€, isbased on the concepts of liminality from both anthropology and queer theory. They are an exploration of what makes a space liminal or queer, and how queer space is different from heteronormative space. These monoprints are visualizations of the mental and emotional landscapes of liminality (or queerness). They also explore what it feels like as a queer person to inhabit a largely heterosexual world, and why queer (liminal) space is so important to the LGBTQ community.

Liminal (or liminality) is defined as being in-between, and queerness is a form of this in-betweenness. If you identify as queer, you are neither male nor female. You are ambiguous and figured as somewhere in-between masculine and feminine or figured as existing outside the norms of society. In the same way that a queer person is a type of liminal persona, a queer space is a form of liminal space; a queer space, like liminal space, can be a space that is disorienting and out of ordinary time and place.

TOP 25 - I am Yemenite 1, Michelle Sider

Inspired by the stories of Yemenite and other Arab and African Jews who fled their countries, I created â€œI am Yemenite 1â€. This glass mosaic is part of a series depicting the rich and painful history of the people from this region. The eyes of this woman from the South Eastern region of Haban reveal years of hardship combined with strength, resilience and faith. My goal is to teach and honor those whose story I wish to tell. This body of work is both personally meaningful and relevant today as we struggle with the plight of refugees from many regions.

TOP 25 - The Love of A Black Mother, Trinity Akins

I created this piece for my mother because she is the strongest woman I know. Several people assume that black women are weak and unresourceful. But my mother survived Death and came back to life to take care of us. Through our trials and tribulations, she has always supported my siblings and me. Every morning around 4 am, she wakes up and prays. She prays that my siblings and I will find our way in the world and praises God for blessing her with children. Each butterfly represents each child she had; the smallest butterfly in the right-hand corner died in a tragic accident at the hospital shortly after birth; his name is Gabriel.

TOP 25 - Rab Hamilton, Alex Gilford

I've been utilizing the current Stay Home. Stay Safe. Save Lives. Executive Order to spend some uninterrupted hours on this oil painting of my relative Rab Hamilton. He is a prawn fisherman and mountaineer living in Cuil Bay, Scotland. On my last visit to him in 2018 he took my fiancÃ©, brother, and I out in his boat onto Loch Linnhe and Loch Leven and showed us how to pull-up the creels, gather the prawns, bait the creels with salted herring, and shoot them back out into the water without losing any fingers.

His mouth is caught open, whether it is to tell you the Gaelic name of each of the hills that rise up from the shoreline and beyond, to belt out a sea shanty to a green horn mariner who is new to â€œthe outdoor life,â€ or to regale you with tales of past mountaineering expeditions. His nose is rosy with the brisk November wind coming down from the mountains and off of the water. His etched crows feet are evidence of a life lived with an authentically rugged spirit for adventure. His gaze is cast off into the distance, perhaps tinged with dread for the collapsing fisheries aggravated by the undiscerning gluttony of the large scale commercial fishing operationsâ€” a threat to his way of life as, â€œthe last of the hunters.â€ A sole proprietor whose line of creels is guided by experience and knowledge of the loch and who takes only what is ready to be gotten. It is a look which knows that, â€œthe seas have had enough.â€

Prawns crawl out from the creel and into the tangled rope below. Crabs, an octopus, a dogfish shark, and other sea life swirl around him. Anticipatory sea gulls wheel above his head hoping to make a meal out of the unsought creatures as they are thrown overboard, intent on resuming their life in the watery depths. These cycles revolve and feed off one another, echoing the natural pursuit of living off the land, in a manner of speaking.

Encounter With The Sea Guardian, Ryan Tavarez

While searching to find the meaning of Home, Lucy Bell finds herself on a boundless journey encountering the very spirits of life itself. Depicted here, Lucy and her trusty frog sidekick - Asiago, have found the Guardian of the Sea! This is one illustration of many more for a YA novel I am writing, and I felt that it captures some of the energy and emotions of a youth, like small ship in a vast ocean trying to withstand the might of the tides, ebbs and flows, of the world.

Havanna Race, Artem Rezchikov

ARTem is a Russian artist born in Siberia. Currently lives and works in Moscow.

He studied at the Florentine Academy of Art. Graduated from the National Research Moscow State University of Civil Engineering (Engineering and Architecture Department). Actively participates in international festivals, competitions and exhibitions. Constantly improves the level of his skill in drawing and painting, combines different styles and techniques. He is a member of the Creative Union of Professional Artists of Russia.

In 2018 and 2019 he was repeatedly awarded first prizes at Ukraine-based competitions among international painters of all ages:
- â€œHis Majesty Landscape 2018â€ (http://painters.com.ua/konkurs-ego-velichestvo-pejjzazh-2018/) and
- â€œIndividual Portrait Contestâ€ (http://painters.com.ua/konkurs-individualnogo-portreta/).

Artemâ€™s works are in private collections in Italy, Australia, Canada, Ukraine and Russia.

Artist about his oeuvre: â€œIn the era of complex technologies, I think that the visual art of the next century requires clarity and simplicity, an appeal to common sense in the immense beauty of creation. For the upcoming festival I would like to nominate a Havana race as a representation of my favorite Cuba journey collection with different colorations

Hope In the Time Of Pandemic, Mari

During this pandemic I had a little more time for introspection, analysis and for their rendition as hues on canvas. This work is titled "Hope in the Time of Pandemic" not only to allude to the marquezian literary work, that we now can relate to on a much deeper level, but to embody genuine feelings of love and hope amidst all the difficulties we encounter, whether on a personal or collective level.