Susan Paczek's Studio: Bunnies

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

New Work Taken to The Dart Gallery, December 19th 2017

Here are photos of new pieces dropped off at The Dart Gallery in downtown Dartmouth last week, starting with a group shot to give an idea of relative size of the pieces:

The gallery is looking fantastic with all sorts of wonderful local pottery and jewelry, a show of fun pieces inspired by Pixar and many great cards and prints. The gallery also has a handy storage with many great pieces from previous shows.

For folks who would enjoy some delicious food and drink with their Christmas shopping, or are just looking for an artsy holiday outing, Dart is adjacent to Picnic at Dart, a licensed bistro under the direction of a very creative chef who trained at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School.

The gallery's neighbourhood has also been hailed in the national news media this year as "Halifax's Brooklyn" as downtown Dartmouth turns into a popular indie shopping/dining destination.

On to the work! First, a bunny and mouse holding flowers, which could hold rings for safe keeping:

Next up: an owl and pussycat sculptures.

For Chinese astrology fans, next year will be the Year of the Brown (or Earth) Dog, beginning February 16th, 2018. I didn't realize this when sculpting or glazing this basset hound and corgi:

Next are bunnies with their hedgehog friend: a bowl, sculpture and figurines. One accidentally ended up with a coat that looks similar to Huxley, the gallery bunny - a glazing "mistake" that ended up being an improvement:

Elephants! A small bowl and a figurine, with trunks turned upwards for good luck, ready to shower good fortune on passers by:

Four more figurines, a frog, cat, German Shepherd dog, and raccoon:

Three chickens, a goat and a rooster.

Four crows:

Four sheep and four foxes:

Next, a selection of handsculpted brooches and pendants! These are brand new products for my art practice. First, the brooches, with a loonie (Canadian dollar coin) for scale. These are a bit big but suitable for a jacket, coat or bag, I'll be making smaller ones in the new year:

Next, the pendants.

Suggested musical pairings: for the flying crow pendants: "As the Crow Flies" by Stephen Fearing. For the pig pendant, "The Grim Trucker" by Ron Sexsmith.

In addition to the twenty pendants above, there was a mushroom pendant I didn't manage to get a photo of.

Finally here is a high relief carved bowl of a fox chasing a pheasant:

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Now Available At The Dart Gallery, May 1st 2015

So excited to have new pieces at The Dart Gallery! It's a lovely space, voted best gallery in Halifax in 2014 by Coast Readers, in the hip, happening Portland Street Area of Dartmouth.

For visitors to downtown Halifax, or residents even, this shopping district with great indie shops and restaurants is a short pleasant stroll from Alderney Landing. Accessible by the scenic and affordable public transit ferry that crosses the Halifax harbour, this makes for a fun excursion that doesn't require a car!

The Dart Gallery is currently featuring a beautiful show of abstract work by Amy Corbett, "Comfort Item", until May 13th, and on May 15th there will be an opening for a group show of pieces inspired by everything Jim Henson, which sounds just awesome!

Here are the pics of the work, which are also in this album on Facebook. I managed to get photos of everything except 2 mini white owls, a chicken figurine and an alpaca figurine. All of these pieces are mid-fire stoneware (cone 6) except for a couple of earthenware figurines as noted. All of the 'animal' bowls are food safe, microwave safe and dishwasher safe although hand washing is recommended.

Sullivan's Pond Geese! Inspired by the much loved geese of Sullivan's Pond in Dartmouth... the honking one is saying "What are we doing here, this isn't Sullivan's Pond! Let's Go!"

Getting closer to migrating to Dartmouth...

Goose Close Up


Rabbits! The Dart Gallery's owner, Jane, has a sweet, inspiring, Holland Lop rabbit named Huxley who usually hangs out at the gallery with her. It was fun to make some new rabbits & "rabbitware" for the space; there's a large bowl, a smaller bowl, 5 small figurines and 2 larger figurines.

Close up of large rabbit bowl

A Brown Rabbit bowl - this one is about half the size of the blue/brown one

A pair of real rabbits that appeared and chased each other all over the woods after I photographed the brown rabbit bowl! Hopefully an auspicious omen!