Microcosm In the Macrocosm                                March 10th- June 21st 2025

 

A Collaborative play on scale featuring artists Camille Betts and Kimberly Jones​

 

In the fall of 2024 when reviewing submissions for our 2025 season we approached two artists whose work, while vastly different, we felt played with scale in a way that could illicit a feeling of wonder, curiosity and whimsy. While the scale of their work is so different, some themes are apparent through their exploration of scale, and their use of recycled materials. 

 

 Special thanks to Camille Betts and Kimberly Jones for accepting our curative concept and for working together not only on this collaborative exhibition, but a collaborative piece as well. Below you will find their individual statements. 

 

We encourage you to visit with some time as this exhibition has so much to discover! 

 

​Artist Statements

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Kimberly Jones- SpEATchless

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“SpEATchless” is a growing body of mixed media work that combines diorama and miniature artistry with food themes to create surreal scenes and vignettes meant to provoke introspection in the viewer about scale and size as well as our relationship with food in modern North American culture. Materials used include handcrafted elements of clay, wood and epoxy resin as well as objects sourced from nature and thrift store finds of discarded children’s toys and kitchenware.

 

These works are a celebration of imagination and a critique of our relationship with food. By elevating familiar food and meals to the status of elaborate landscapes, the intention with each piece is to evoke a sense of wonder and curiosity about the often-overlooked details in our daily lives. The juxtaposition of the artificial with the authentic challenges our perceptions of reality and invites viewers to reflect on the narratives and significance we attribute to our sustenance as well as the relationship between scale and perception.

 

Each piece is an attempt to continue the tradition of storytelling through art, where each scene invites a pause—a speechless, frozen moment to consider and explore the whims and wonders of a world that exists just beyond the edge of our plates. The hope is to encourage the viewer to find a playful and thoughtful commentary on the ways we consume.

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Camille Betts- The Pom-Pom Series

 

The Pom-Pom series of sculptures are inspired firstly by Canadian toque toppers. The use of Pom-Poms on toques throughout Canada sets our winter hats apart from our southern neighbours. Small pom-poms have been used by many cultures around the world in fashion and decorations including the Hutsul region of Ukraine where some of my ancestors emigrated from. My second inspiration for making the Pom-Poms comes from when I was six: my family attended the closing ceremonies for the XII Summer Universiade Games in Edmonton and one of the performers gave me a pompom they used in the ceremony. I was so excited with this treasure that I had to take it to show and tell at school. 

 

This project started after a crafty neighbour, passed down a large amount of craft supplies including toque pom-pom makers. I started making the pom-poms with fabric scraps, rope and old yarn, making them bulkier as I went along until a friend who works in sheet metal saw the potential for the increase in scale and made a steel pompom maker strong enough to hold the tension created by wrapping the materials. I have experimented with used clothing, VHS ribbon, old electrical cords and used party supplies to learn how the materials work alone and together to create the textures and shape of the pom-poms.

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This series is quite textural and colourful. As I worked on this series; I thought a lot about how I wanted the colour and textures to be the sculpture. It started off as a nod to carefree Canadian childhood fun and took formal route to an ornate, abstract sculpture series. Each Pom-Pom has its own faces, profiles and personalities. I don’t trim the Pom-Poms into perfect spheres, the different textures exposed are part of the detail of the sculptures. The use of old fabrics was inspired by Michelangelo Pistoletto’s 1960’s “Venus of the Rags” and my colour combinations have been developing along the lines of Mark Rothko’s colour field paintings.

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Made in secret as I stepped away from art for important family time, this series was built slowly over time and this is its first formal exhibition. Making the pompoms is a multi step process requiring: choosing the textures and colours, preparing the media by cleaning and portioning, wrapping layer after layer and the final step of cutting it open when the tension releases to unveil the final sculpture. This process is cathartic and helped me stay connected to why I make what I do over a period when art was not as accessible to me. A major theme in my practice is recycling or upcycling forgotten materials. Breathing new life to other people’s garbage or excess can be

awkward and uncomfortable at times, but I have found satisfaction in combining materials to produce these spherical, painterly Pom-Pom sculptures.

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