Where I’m At Now: A Conversation in Art

Where I’m At Now: A Conversation in Art is a growing collection of collaborative 'postcards’ that reflect the experience of place – physical and psychic – by artists Yael Brotman, Karen Curry, Liz Parkinson, Snaige Sileika and MJ Steenberg, colloquially called The Gibson Girls.

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At our 2018 retreat Liz Parkinson suggested a project to help us stay connected during the rest of the year. Each artist was to create five artworks on 4” x 6” cards based on their current studio inquiry and mail four of these to each of the others in the group.  Each artist was then to add their own imagery to the card before sending it to another member of the group.  More than 600 postcards have now travelled to Gabriola Island, British Columbia; Pouch Cove, Newfoundland; Toronto and Port Hope, Ontario; Puerto Escondido, Mexico; and Vilnius, Lithuania; with input by

each of the Gibson Girls.

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Where I’m At Now was first exhibited in the George Gilmour Gallery at Open Studio, Toronto, in 2019.  At 175 cards, The Gibson Girls’ intention was that this would lead to an ongoing series of unique & expanding exhibitions. The 2020 exhibition slated for the Marija and Jurgis Slapelis Art Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania was postponed to May 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

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As the group continues working on the project, they are experiencing a change in the collective narrative of the cards as they are transformed by the reality of our new social conditions, the emotions and themes born out of isolation, and our enhanced need for safe contact with others. The Where I’m At Now collaboration is the connection and conversation the Gibson Girls have right now as they pursue individual artistic and personal paths in isolation. They hope that these small artistic gestures towards community and understanding bring some of the solace to viewers, that they have experienced themselves in the process of creating them.