We are excited to feature new work by returning artist and Akin Dupont member, Rebecca Jane Houston. Rebecca’s piece, “Perfect Circle” will be on exhibit in our Vitrine galleries located at 1485 Dupont and 1747 St. Clair Avenue West over the next two months.

Can I draw circles through past and current work? If I line it all up, an accumulation of stuff made over 5 years, is there a thread to draw them together? When I was in my MFA, I spent a lot of time trying to make perfect spheres on the wood lathe. It was a meditative process and more than that it was a claiming of space as a woman in a wood shop through my presence; by taking up space and time at the tools, and doing it in a feminist way that valued process over “expertise”, open experimentation over “mastery”. Of course I only see this in retrospect. In the vitrine you can see the collection of wood spheres made on the lathe in various stages of completion. In 2017, while working on a project making 100 slip cast bowls, something I hadn’t done before, I kept the trimmings by hanging them all over my studio where they dried and many crumbled. The ones left, that survived all the moving and firing and handling, are hanging here in the vitrine as well. Another set of circles, all warped and drooping. Each like a line drawing, but in three dimensions. I was partly successful in making these bowls, it was also somewhat disastrous. Finally, the two ceramic sculptures were made with casts of spheres in clay. This was just another experiment. They were to represent a bubbling up of feeling. I don’t know if it really happened but again I learned something and moved on to the next thing. I have gathered these three collections of circles together to see if there is a meaning that brings me back in circular ways through similar considerations. Or perhaps it’s just a random collection of things.

Perfect Circle
ceramics, wood, nails
2018
dimensions available

To contact the artist:
Instagram: @rebeccajanehouston
#Akinvitrine

Akin Collective + Akin Projects are excited to present our 2018 programming in two Vitrine Galleries located at Akin Dupont and Akin St. Clair. These miniature galleries feature the diverse talent of our members with travelling installations rotating each month. Each artist will be featured for the first month at Dupont and second month at St. Clair. For more information about our artists and our programming, join us on Instagram @akinvitrine.

‘Perfect Circles’ will be on view for the month of November in our Dupont Akin Vitrine Gallery, located in the Clock Factory Building at 1485 Dupont Street (entrance on Campbell Avenue). Find Akin Studio 215 on the second floor and follow the sign into the hallway around the corner. The building is open from 9am to 6pm, Monday to Saturday.

The exhibition will then travel to the Akin St. Clair Vitrine Gallery and be on view for the month of December at 1747 St. Clair Avenue West. Gallery is street level and can be viewed at any time.