Margaret Millar
strand line : too heavy to hold
The Featured Artist's work can be seen online and in the gallery from Jan. 7 to Feb. 1.
Opening reception: Friday, January 9, 5-7 pm
Artist talk: Wednesday, January 21 at 12 noon.
Contact the gallery for inquiries.
About the Artist
Margaret Millar is a glass and multi-media artist, living working and playing in the Annapolis Valley, Mi’kma’ki Nova Scotia.
Surrounded by big rock and big forest, she spent much of her childhood outdoors in the Anishinaabe territories of rural Northern Ontario. A Bachelor of Design at OCAD University ignited an interest in how we communicate through object and design.
Always making things with her hands and exploring different mediums, a lampwork bead class at NSCAD University cemented her passion for glass.
Having experienced periods of deep disconnection from nature, Margaret lives more slowly then she once did. When not in her studio, she is on the trails and beaches or in the garden re-learning how to belong to nature.
Largely self-directed, Margaret explores the shared resilience and fragility of glass and the other-than-human world with a creative and thoughtful approach; exploring ways of working with glass while being innovative and resourceful in how it relates to other materials.
Artist Statement
My interest in the historical use of representational flame-worked glass for botanical study translates my studio practice into a sculptural extension of a nature journal. My work represents commonplace and often overlooked parts of nature in detailed and joyous glass sketches that are inspired by our disconnection from the natural, other-than-human, world - despite our intrinsic tie to it.
By combining different glass techniques such as the molten glass in flame-working, the melding of glass forms through kiln-forming, and the altering of surfaces with cold-working, I connect the elemental nature of glass and material to the natural subject matter represented. Mixing custom colours of glass, before hand-forming or using self-made moulds, creates texture, opacity, and movement in the glass.
This work builds off of my 2023 pebble jewellery collection and includes glasswork and elements of beach trash gifted by the tide. Inspired by surrealism’s use of contrast and association between mundane, commonplace objects, and the fantastical, this collection explores the bridge between realism and surrealism - shifting my practice away from botanical illustrative representations.
Continuing to explore the shared fragility and resilience of both glass and nature, strand line : too heavy to hold explores the climate crisis and humans as part of nature through the life and materials found at our beaches’ high tide lines. I find that surrealism’s emotional mechanisms of free association act as a powerful tool to challenge ideological values while also reinforcing my belief that nature-inspired art can help us re-learn our place as part of nature by reconnecting us to the natural world.