New artists in the woods at Sundance Tour

Sep 08, 2011

Photo: folk artist Penny Gorman with one of her dioramas at the Sundance Studio Tour

The Sundance Studio Tour has been taking place at the home of Cam and Carmen Allen near Maberly and has been attracting accomplished artists from near and far in a variety of mediums since it began five years ago. This year’s tour was no exception and new to the line up was folk artist Penny Gorman of Lansdowne, ON. Gorman who has been working as an artist for 15 years creates works solely from antique architectural salvage. She works out of Ballycanoe and Company, an antique architectural salvage store where she was employed for years. She came to art making almost by accident. “We had been sending materials that could not be processed or repaired to the landfill and felt it was a waste. So the owner and I one day started making things with it to show people what they could do with these materials. People loved the stuff and wanted to buy it and I just kept going from there”, she said.

Penny's works includes a wide range of functional and non functional objects: mailboxes made from antique tin and mirrors framed with sections of old door molding and trim or cut sections of antique wooden exterior shutter slats. Her palette is gorgeous, muted tones with distressed textured surfaces preserved in their original painted colours, which add so much antique charm to each piece. Gorman also sells a line of decorative lawn ornaments; wee bird houses and barn cats made from pieces of old doors, ceiling tin and copper lightening rod cable that are cute but not too cute like other lawn ornaments can be.

My favorite pieces are her hanging artworks, or as she calls them her dioramas, 3D framed pieces that explore various images and themes often in a humorous vein. One diorama depicts a series of cows made from pieces of shutter hardware painted and assembled to resemble cows in a field that she's fenced in with old lightning rod cable.

Another favorite is a depiction of Elvis made from the insides of old box locks. Her latest works are her “Grandma's clothesline” diorama series made with lightning rod wire clotheslines from which hang clothes cut from old ceiling tin that she has painted and mounted on sections of old antique interior raised door panels.

Gorman's works are expressive, whimsical and unique and art goers at this year’s tour were definitely taking notice. You can visit her website at pennygorman.com

The Sundance Tour once again this year attracted many visitors but this might be the last time that the tour takes place at this location.

Cam Allen said the house is for sale and they are hoping to relocate the tour to the Fall River Restaurant for next year, which he said would be great because they have a huge lot that backs on to the river, and there is lots of parking there as well.