Latch hook pandemic fiber art installation by Hudson Valley artist Jacinta Bunnell
Fun-A-Day, February 15, 2020 - High Falls, NY
Fun-A-Day is an annual community creative project. Each person picks a project, does it every day for the month of January, and then comes together for a big art show in February. It's a terrific way to keep motivated in the darkest days of winter! Projects can be anything at all. People have done Song-A-Day, Haiku-A-Day, Scrabble-A-Day, Movie-Review-A-Day, Pie-A-Day. It began in Philadelphia by a group of artists and community organizers and has now spread around the world.
I collaged 31 photos of little me into caring, nervous system-regulating environments filled with images from the natural world. How many of us actually got everything we needed as little ones? And how did this affect the decisions we have made throughout our lives? I think about this almost everyday and it gives me compassion for everyone. Through this daily practice, I offered Little Me safety, peaceful grace, and a protective shield from any badness and unlove she may have encountered. I’m surrounding this little one with rainbows, trees, icebergs, butterflies, and flowers to bring her calm and joy. Because I posted the art on instagram, friends beamed love to little me, an unexpected added benefit to this project.
These works are for sale. Contact Jacinta for details.
Light House Style MIXED MEDIA WORKS by JACINTA BUNNELL
102 Partition Street, Saugerties, NY
AUGUST 2019 TO NOW
In May of 2019, Jacinta traveled to the Bay of Fundy with her photographer friend Deborah Degraffenreid for an art retreat, packing whatever art supplies she could fit in her carry-on. Surrounded by the quiet beauty of Nova Scotia, Jacinta holed up for a week doing something she had never done before: focused on art making as a job for 8-10 hours a day. Much of Jacinta's artwork is based on found ephemera, and this collection is no different. The materials she brought on retreat were sparing, mostly made up of ephemera that once belonged to the treasurer of the High Woods Sportmen's Club in the 1970s, gifted to Jacinta by the artists who inherited his paperwork with the purchase of their new Saugerties home.
This work is inspired by the exquisiteness and serenity of a week spent in a humble cabin overlooking one of the natural wonders of North America, a unique setting that has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world, a place you can find amethyst on the beach and see the Northern Lights. This new series of mixed media works based on found ephemera includes bank statements and hand-written notes that give you clues to Saugerties' past, made contemporary by a touch of paint, ink or found images layered atop.
These works are documented on instagram and are for sale. Contact the artist for details. Some of these works are currently available at Light House Style in Saugerties, NY.
Fun-A-Day, February 16, 2019 - Kitchenette, High Falls, NY
Fun-A-Day is an annual community creative project. Each person picks a project, does it every day for the month of January, and then comes together for a big art show in February. It's a terrific way to keep motivated in the darkest days of winter! Projects can be anything at all. People have done Song-A-Day, Haiku-A-Day, Scrabble-A-Day, Movie-Review-A-Day, Pie-A-Day. It began in Philadelphia by a group of artists and community organizers and has now spread around the world.
For Fun-A-Day 2019, I created a series of collages and drawings on black paper, all within a magic 5” gold circle. The 5” parameter allowed me to confine my practice to 10 minutes a day and still feel creative. Several of these are still available. See instagram for more.
Fun-A-Day is an annual community creative project. Each person picks a project, does it every day for the month of January, and then comes together for a big art show in February. It's a terrific way to keep motivated in the darkest days of winter! Projects can be anything at all. People have done Song-A-Day, Haiku-A-Day, Scrabble-A-Day, Movie-Review-A-Day, Pie-A-Day. It began in Philadelphia by a group of artists and community organizers and has now spread around the world.
Fun-A-Day 2017: Every day of January 2017, I committed to making a small piece of art. The only rules for myself were that it had to be on a flashcard and had to incorporate a small piece of a map.
Farley's East, Oakland, CA 2016
Shire City Sanctuary, MA 2015
Anvil Gallery, Kingston, NY 2014
In response to the hyper-competitive art game, Cindy Hoose and Jacinta Bunnell played with their art to create the 52 pieces in your turn, dear, taking turns on each painting in a manner reminiscent of Exquisite Corpse. Their work directs our attention to the reasons we play games: to explore the world imaginatively, free of the hope for success or the fear of failure, and to connect with each other in the spirit of joy and sentimentality.
In taking turns painting, Hoose and Bunnell had to forego the solo artist’s executive authority, risking each move to the counterplay of the other player, and enter into the uncertainty of outcome essential to all games. From firehouse bingo to Mah Jongg, games have functioned to educate, entertain, transmit tradition and facilitate human communion throughout history: your turn, dear celebrates this ongoing history and longs for a time and place where being social does not involve technology.
Hoose and Bunnell spent 52 weeks working with 52 vintage game boards-turned-canvases. In keeping with their commitment to make art from recycled materials, they scavenged yard sales and thrift stores for games and framing materials which became a series of paintings exploring the concept of play. Just as games can serve as a counterbalance to employment, where the worries of competition and promotion can dominate, the playful paintings in this show counteract the creeping contrivance of cultural art.
These works are for sale. Contact the artist for details.
KMOCA (Kingston Museum of Contemporary Arts), 2010
Inspired by the artwork of the children in her life, Hudson Valley artist Jacinta Bunnell presented a collection of mixed media paintings created over the course of one year. This show featured all new work, shown alongside the drawings of young artists that influenced her art.
Shy as a Shrimp is a series of mixed media paintings inspired by the artwork of children in my life. Over the course of one year I set out to paint pirates, monsters, cats, monster cats, airplanes, foxes and other fancy creatures. Children often give me art as a way of marking the end of our days together or to express friendship. When I receive the gift of art made by a young person it is as big a gift as any to me. I have included some of this artwork in the show and paired it with paintings of mine directly inspired by each drawing.
Children are amazing teachers. They laugh easily, they tell you openly what they think of you, and they create art with exceptional depth and expression. Children make art without trying to get paid or get famous. They typically do not dwell on whether art is good or bad. I found myself amazed each day I spent with their drawings. I gave myself exactly one year to complete these paintings and through my study I once and for all settled the argument about whether unicorns are real. They are. We have all met one at least once.
Besides a nursery school scrapbook, I have only one piece of art that I created as a child. And I had no idea it existed until very recently. My grandmother had saved it since 1975 and gave it back to me when we were cleaning her house together a few years ago. I included this drawing in my study as well. Jumping into my own art, some thirty years later, proved to be a most surreal experience. By doing so I found myself back at the kitchen table in Glenburn, Pennsylvania, the sights and sounds of my childhood home rushing back in. While working with my nieces’ Keetin Cheung and Zia Lawrence’s drawings, I was swept back to the innumerable hours I spent with each of them drawing at the dining room table, catching up and laughing hard. While studying the art of Storey Littleton and Max Cohen, I reflected deeply on my first sweet year as an assistant teacher at High Meadow School.
I am proud to share the gallery walls with each of these friends, all of them tightly embraced in my heart in their own unique way. The following people served as my guides and mentors throughout this incredible journey:
Cameron Vaughan
Daniel Gunther
Ella Ullman
Emma Sachi
Gideon Schwartz
Grace Martinez
India Sachi
Jasper Schwartz
Jenny Westlake
Joe Martinez
Keetin Cheung
Max Cohen
Olivia Wogan
Ruby Gunn
Silas Schwartz
Storey Littleton
Zia Lawrence
Thank you to them and to each of you. My life is better for knowing you.
TeamLove Ravenhouse Gallery, 2013
Secret City, Woodstock 2016
These original drawings are a collaboration between Jacinta Bunnell and her step-father, Ed Antoine. Ed supplies Jacinta with daily score sheets from 13, a rummy card game brought back to their family in the 1970s from Jacinta’s maternal grandparents. The game was imported from Ocean Breeze Trailer Park, Shirley and Bill Browning’s retirement community in Jensen Beach, Florida. Jacinta adds color and pattern to Ed’s neatly crafted grid work tally sheets to create this artwork.
At the time of its incorporation, this 45-acre park was said to be the largest privately owned trailer park in the United States. This charming community where Shirley and Bill spent their winters represents a bygone era in Florida’s history, with it’s small cottages and trailers, community bath and laundry rooms, and an entire building devoted to neighborhood games. Much of the rest of Florida’s coasts have since been permeated with large mansions and condominiums. Dorothy Geeben was mayor of Ocean Breeze from 2001-11. When she was re-elected in 2004 at the age of 96, she was the oldest living mayor in the US. The residents of the town are among the few in the area who still receive mail delivered to their front doors instead of curbside.
Jacinta’s family continues to play 13 every day and have developed a tight community of friends who stop by for games every weekend.
These works are for sale. Contact Jacinta for details.
Rosendale Cafe, 2008
This show was an artistic duet. Jacinta Bunnell and Cindy Hoose collaborated closely, sharing themes, color schemes, content and materials. While each of their work was done separately in their own studios, close planning and communication led to an engaging mirroring of styles and ideas. When Cindy and Jacinta come together, they can transform everyday materials into anything tangentially related to mythological creatures and baby animals, made up of found fabric scraps, lime green paint and vintage buttons. Each pair of paintings read like a carnival side show at Noah's ark.
A collection of mixed media paintings, collages, and drawings by Jacinta Bunnell. Working from a giant collection of found paper and ephemera gathered since she was a child, this collection represents many different styles of work completed in the last decade. Contact the artist for availability and commissions.