Artist in Residence
2019 Champlain College Artist in Residence - Wendy Trusler
On behalf of Champlain College I would like to invite you to meet our 2019 Artist in Residence, Wendy Trusler. Wendy is a local artist from the Peterborough Community who has spent time on Trent campus in the past presenting new projects and celebrating book publications. While some of you may have met Wendy in the past and are familiar with her work, this year she would like to introduce her new project How to Do Anything.
I invite you to read more about Wendy’s projects and consider opportunity to meet with her in person. She would like to invite you to visit with her in the Champlain Living Learning Common’s where she will be displaying her work, or to join one of her salons, she also would be willing to visit your class room.
We will be hosting a free lunch for all from 11-2 on Tuesday Jan 15th to welcome Wendy and to invite you to check out her work in the Learning Living Commons (CLLC) CCS 201. Otherwise we invite you to join Wendy at any location on her posted schedule below: Monday 9-12 (CLLC) 1-4 (Great Hall), Tuesday 11-3pm Welcome Free Lunch (CLLC) 2-6 (great Hall), Wed 9-12 (Athletics Pool), Wed.1-4 (Library), Thursday 10-12 (OC Table), 1-2 (PHIL 2020H), 5-8pm (Library), Friday 9-12 (CLLC) 1-4 (Great Hall).
How to Do Anything
Of the knowledge and wisdom that defines you, do you include what you consider second nature? Where is that deep place of knowing, in your head, your body, or both? Do you ever think with your whole person? When? What if you could bring forth and draw upon your entire being— always?
What does this have to do with art?
Join Champlain College artist-in residence, Wendy Trusler, January 14th - 18th as she asks these questions in the development of her new project How to Do Anything.
Over the course of the week, Trusler will host salons and share her art-making process in her studio and exhibition space in the Champlain Living and Learning Commons (CLLC Room 201). There, visitors will find a sampling of Trusler’s past projects and can expect to be invited to engage with the component parts and fodder for her current work. No prep or research is required; instead, participants will be immersed in a collective act of noticing. Through the manipulation and scrutiny of her archive of How-to manuals and vintage sports equipment, as well as several works-in-progress, Trusler hopes to tease out and bring into focus the stories, knowledge and universal truths that may run through them.
To participate in How to Do Anything is to expose the gaps between what we know with our bodies and our minds; to invoke and rebuild trust in intuition; and to cultivate more holistic ways of knowing.
How to Do Anything was made possible through the generous support of the Chalmers Family Fund and the Ontario Arts Council.
About the Artist
Wendy Trusler is an interdisciplinary visual artist, designer, curator and writer who creates site-responsive installations that incorporate drawing, painting, text, sculpture, performance, and film.
Much of her work examines the roles that symbol and language play in coding memory, and the ways in which recollections are organized into what we understand as history. Shaped by the experience of having lived in isolation in wild places, ideas around ecology, continuity and regeneration play out in her material choices and the physicality of her work, as well as how it brings people together.
Her methodology is to create performative environments and communities for participants where they are invited to share their stories, histories, memories and archives — and to present work in forms and contexts such as galleries, storefront windows, industrial spaces and parks to contribute to discussions of what art can be and where it can be found.
Recent projects include The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning (2015 & 2013), and Voices at Hand, an archival-oriented performance piece that has been mounted in ten venues across Ontario and reached audiences in 26 countries.
Trusler is an Associate of the Ontario College of Art and holds a History degree from the University of Western Ontario. Wendy is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, was shortlisted for the Taste Canada Food Writing Awards for Best Culinary Narrative in 2014, and awarded a Chalmers Art Fellowship in 2015.
