An upcoming exhibit at the McMillan Arts Centre (MAC) in Parksville will showcase the talents of Coombs multimedia artist, and Oceanside Community Arts Council member, Dale Rumming.
Rumming’s exhibit, Exploring without boundaries, Creating without Limits, will be at the MAC from Jan. 18 until Feb. 27, and offer a diverse range of media as Rumming explores the limits of her creativity.
“Everything that I’ve done, I always try to create a different way. Like, if I see something being done, I’ll change it and do multimedia with it,” she said. “I don’t like to make six mugs and all identical plates.”
Rumming said she prefers the method of hand-building and creating one-of-a-kind pieces, simply because ‘she never knows where they’ll end up going.’
Those familiar with her work will likely recognize her clay and individually decorated ‘toonie banks.’ The ones at the MAC will be similar to the ‘toonie banks’ she created and gifted to clients while working as a real estate agent, before retiring in 2019.
“I’d see them on fireplaces and in china cabinets,” Rumming said with a chuckle. “Like, they didn’t put one coin in them because they didn’t want to have to take a chance of breaking it.”
While wanting the functional purpose of her banks to be fulfilled, she said she would later tell her wary clients to bring them back so she could outline where they could be drilled without damaging the integrity, and also supply them with a plug.
“They actually hold approximately 600 toonies. So when they open it, they’ll have about $1,200!”
Besides clay, Rumming also enjoys sculpting using paverpol – an environmentally-friendly, water-based textile hardener used as an alternative to resin. Since nature is a clear influence in her work, trying to use as environmentally safe materials as possible is important to her process.
According to Rumming, paverpol is not only easy to use but has many versatile applications, and is great for creating with only the limits of one’s imagination. Come early 2022, she even plans on offering classes at the MAC on how to use and explore the medium.
READ MORE: McMillan Arts Centre in Parksville to host three exhibits in March
The Coombs artist was introduced to the art world while attending high school in Saskatchewan where she took a blended-grade art class. On graduating, Rumming continued with art for a brief period and produced several pieces of commercial art before moving into sales.
Although a predominantly self-taught artist, she did attend several clay work classes at Capilano University in North Vancouver shortly after moving to British Columbia in 1985. Her intention at that time had simply been to develop her skills in an introductory class. However, after seeing her existing projects, an instructor invited her to ‘skip the intro’ and join his advanced sculptural clay class.
“I was there all the time. I wasn’t just in regular classes, I could be there all day,” said Rumming.
“The next room over had a pottery class, and the teacher used to come in and watch because I had the keys to the room. I had just put something in the kiln and she says, ‘you know, if you want to take pottery, you can. You wouldn’t get the credit for it, but at least you’ll get the basics.’ And so I thought why not? – another opportunity again.”
Those who attend Exploring without boundaries, Creating without limits can expect to see Rumming diverse works of acrylic and alcohol ink on canvas, as well as clay and paverpol pieces.
Rumming said she also intends to be at the MAC two days a week during the six-week exhibit as part of the art centre’s ‘Meet the Artist’ engagement, but as of yet, has not decided which specific days she’ll be there.