Dawn MacNutt – Nova Scotia, Canada

ARTISTS BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:

http://www.dawnmacnutt.com/collections.php


Interpreting universal human form, or architectonic column-like forms, she generally works with natural Dawn’s work is most often inspired by her lifelong love of the human condition. …what she describes as ‘the beauty of human frailty’. There is an increasing interest in her life size willow works cast into bronze for outdoor installations and sculpture gardens. Recently, she came to live in rural Pictou County (Nova Scotia) where, coincidentally, she was born. As her husband and she worked to restore the old house on his property to make it into a working studio, they discovered, looking at the property deed and
at her father’s geneology, that the studio was built in 1838 by her great great great grandfather, Alexander James Reid. Her husband Merle, has brought color into her life. Color crept into her work tentatively at first, but the passion to layer color on form keeps growing. Working in this ancestral pace, looking out to the rural landscape of the woods, so near the ocean, a sense of joy and peace layers the former seriousness of her work. She was inducted into the RCA (Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts) in 2008. in 2005, and was honored with a Doctorate of Humane Letters by Mount St. Vincent University. As well as her exhibition and commission work, she is a member of the International Sculpture Center, Nova Scotia Designer Craftsmen (Master Artisan), and Visual Arts Nova Scotia. She served as a
national director on Canadian Craft Council from 1983-7. Dawn has led workshops and seminars in Canada and the U.S.A, and has served on local and national juries. Her career has been the subject of many published articles and reviews, and a filmed documentary. Dawn MacNutt obtained her B.A. (Art and Psychology) in 1957 from Mount Allison University, New Brunswick. In 1970, she obtained the M.S.W., from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Museum. A space to linger, loiter, meditate, ancient French verb; to waste time.

The central view plane is from the long flat rock – looking up through the canopy of oak leaves to sky (stand, sit, especially lie down on the rock)

Bronze columns merely lead to the natural space, bounded by old oak trees, groomed with gentle intervention.