Tiffany Howe is a multidisciplinary artist who creates mixed media paintings, sculptures, earrings, textile, and installation art using recycled materials, found objects, photography, lasers, design, tech, and whatever resources she can get her hands on. Her creative vision is based on finding potential in materials while exploring themes of nostalgia, body dysmorphia, inspiration overload, chronic pain, and anthropomorphism.
She was raised in the village of Haliburton, Ontario, Canada and currently resides there in a heritage building on the same street she grew up on. Serendipitously, her home and studio are in what was previously an iconic general store she frequented as a child.
Locally, she is an award-winning artist and teacher, an inspiration coach, performer and model, and is curator at the Ethel Curry Gallery where she has worked for over 15 years.
She studied at Sheridan College in Art Fundamentals and Craft & Design, various programs at the Haliburton School of Art + Design and continues to expand her skills on a regular basis. Raised by crafty, licensed tradesperson parents, she’s been a DIY expert all her life, employing practical hands-on skills to anything and everything and attributes most of her accolades over her 22-year-long creative career to this fact above most of her formal education.
She recently had a “spiritual awakening” (or bigtime life overhaul if you prefer…) deciding to only make art that feeds her soul, helps her release/manage pain, celebrates the restlessness of her hyperactive brain, or makes her laugh.
Appointments are required for studio visits outside of posted event dates. Visit the Events Page for details.
Artist Statements & CV below.
I’ve written a lot of artist statements that go on about using found objects and recycled materials in order to divert them from landfills. I’ve rattled on about investigating a reconciliation between our compulsion to keep nostalgic belongings vs. our wasteful, disposable society. These are themes that will always influence my work. But now, I really wanna play. I can’t stop dickin’ around with this sloppy concoction I invented – seeing what random and obscure items I can coat in it and what they’ll look like once I’ve “fossilized” them. I have two themes clanging around up top that aren’t obviously related if you don’t live in my brain: Making silly, funny, creepy, strange sculptures out of all the materials and found bric a brac, and making sculptures and paintings that are self portraits about my experience as a woman-wacko-overthinky-overwhelmed artist. Some are about my physical pain and borderline body dysmorphia… others are about drowning in my own ideas, because there are an insane number of projects I want to make. Like, way way waaayyy too many ideas to actually accomplish in one life.
For all the years I’ve been an artist, writing “proper” artist statements has been a huge struggle. They always sound dry or contrived. And I don’t think I get all my points across in a way that’s compelling to read. I want you to be COMPELLED! And then give me money and paid exhibitions because you’re so into what I’m up to!
So, here, I tell you all – I am taking my art WAY too seriously while simultaneously making fun of it and taking nothing seriously.
For the foreseeable future I’m just gonna be making some weird shit and documenting the fuck out of it.
If you’re into it – peek at my Instagram account. That’s where I show all the shenanigans and process and progress.
Below is one of my artist statements from a couple years ago. It’s still totally relevant, just, like I said, maybe a bit dry in relation to how much I laugh when I’m actually creating. But I do care about it a lot so give it a read if you’re up for it.
Thanks for taking a moment here with me rambling.
Artist Statement 2020
My gift and affliction in life is the ability to see potential in things.
Many years ago, I learned how devastating the denim industry was on natural water systems, and how cotton farming used remarkably high amounts of harmful chemical pesticides, and so I began exploring ways to divert jeans from landfills by making them into interesting or beautiful things.
Our capitalist/commercial society’s complicity with planned obsolescence and fast fashion irritates me because they destroy ecosystems, cause harm to the earth’s natural environments, and create illness in humans globally. We currently live in an extremely dangerous time of the Anthropocene. I am compelled to prevent things from becoming refuse: to see obscure beauty in trash and transform it into art.
Meanwhile, people hold similar emotional attachments to inanimate objects and living beings.
We go to great lengths to keep insentient belongings with us- to travel with them, preserve them, make memories with them. They have no feelings and the purpose they serve is ephemeral, yet we cling to them, squirrel them away and love them. This behaviour has driven me to attempt to reconcile the gap between wastefulness and the impulse to hold onto nostalgia by keeping recognizable elements of the original materials in my pieces.
I invented an acrylic paint/medium based concoction that allows me to manipulate, coat, and seal recycled denim as well as many other recycled and natural found objects. I use this method to merge my skills as a multidisciplinary artist to paint, draw, sew, print, digitally manipulate imagery, apply technology, sculpt, mould, and assemble; re-examining each as they bond to one another in unifying layers visually and conceptually. It is important to me to demonstrate that by applying cross-disciplinary skills, we can find inspiration and applications to reuse things.
When I look at a pair of jeans I dissect them into categories of salvageable fabric yardage, shapes that resemble familiar imagery, strings that will become reeds and grass, strips that look like flags, buildings, wires for birds to sit on and gnarly bits that will smush into amazing textures.
The motifs in textile stitchery are comforting. Sealing denim in paint gives it a feeling of being cast in plaster or bronze. It gives it a permanence that somehow outweighs its emphemerality and glorifies the nostalgia making it exciting for people to recognize where it came from.
It has become an obsession to see what else I can do with this seemingly inexhaustible resource and to attempt to understand how people can be emotionally attached to certain inanimate objects yet throw away so many others without abandon. If the world could look at garbage the way that I do; impulsively trying to find ways to transform or upcycle it, we could start to solve the oxymoron global issue of resource scarcity in some places and overwhelming amounts of litter and overflowing landfills in others.
I want there to be hope for this world. The idea that nature and man-made things can coexist and compliment each other feeds my inspiration, driving me to find more ways to explore creation.
Tiffany Howe Curriculum Vitae
Multidisciplinary Artist
(705) 457-6919
howecreative@hotmail.com
35 Pine Avenue, Haliburton ON, K0M 1S0
EXHIBITIONS - SOLO
You Make Me Wanna Scream Too, How(e) Creative Studio, Haliburton, October 2022
Salvaged Remnants, Agnes Jamieson Gallery, Minden, February 2020
Shiny Treasures and Earthy Crustaceans – Hand of the Maker, The Art Hive, Haliburton, 2011
Flight Lessons with Maurice, Heritage House Cafe, Haliburton, 2010
Mixed Media – Hand of the Maker, The Art Hive, Haliburton, 2010
Tiffany Howe – Recent Works, The Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre, Haliburton, 2008
Tiffany Howe – Recent Works, The Hair Salon, Haliburton, 2007
EXHIBITIONS/SHOWS - GROUP
You Make Me Wanna Scream, with David Partridge, How(e) Creative Studio, Haliburton, October 2021
How(e) Creative Open House, with Noelia Marziali, and Scott Walling, How(e) Creative Studio, Haliburton, April, July, and December 2021
Love Fest, Dorset, August 2019
Making It, with Noelia Marziali & Sophie Creelman, Rails End Gallery & Art Centre, March-May 2018
Yule Love, Studio Open House, Blackbird Pottery, Haliburton, 2018
Haliburton County Studio Tour, Studio/Artist, Haliburton, 2012 to 2020 & 2022
Fashion Fallies Annual Wearable Art Show, The Art Hive, Haliburton, 2008 to 2011
In SIRCH of the Perfect Christmas, Group Exhibition, Minden Community Centre, Minden, 2010
She Earth - Woman.Spirit.Nature, Exhibition with Noelia Marziali, The Ethel Curry Gallery, Haliburton, 2010
Open House - 3 Artists, with Noelia Marziali & Kathleen Atkinson-Hindle, 11015 Stanhope, 2010
Home Sweet Home, Group Exhibition, The Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre, Haliburton, 2010
Transformation, Group Exhibition, Beaver Theatre, Minden, 2009
Rural Routes, Group Exhibition, The Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre, Haliburton, 2009
Metamorphosis and Global Health, Group Exhibition, Hart House, University of Toronto, Toronto, 2009
Haliburton Art & Craft Festival, Head Lake Park, Haliburton, 2007, 2008, & 2011
Mielcombe - Multimedia Group Exhibition, Peridot Resto/Lounge, Toronto, 2008
Pure - Multimedia Group Exhibition, Peridot Resto/Lounge, Toronto, 2007
Caliente - Multimedia Group Exhibition, Peridot Resto/Lounge, Toronto, 2007
REPRESENTATION - GALLERY
Watson & Lou, Peterborough, 2022 to present
A Place 4 the Arts, Bancroft, 2020 to 2021
Agnes Jamieson Gallery, Minden, 2020 to 2022
Artech Studios/The Hot Shop, Tory Hill, 2019 to 2020
Meta 4 Contemporary Craft Gallery, Peterborough & Port Perry, 2019 to present
The Art Hive, Maple Lake, 2009 to 2012, and 2015
The Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre, Haliburton, 2008 to 2020
The Ethel Curry Gallery, Haliburton, 2006 to present
REPRESENTATION – OTHER VENUES/RETAIL
Rowan & Oak, Haliburton, 2023
Sirch Marketplace, Haliburton, 2021 to 2022
The Cookhouse Restaurant, Haliburton, 2020
Poho Boho, Port Hope, 2019 to 2020
Haliburton Forest Wolf Centre, Haliburton, 2018 to 2020
Castle Antiques, Huntsville, 2018 to 2020
Haliburton Highlands Brewing, Haliburton, 2017 to 2019
Manantler Craft Brewery, Bowmanville, 2014 to 2015
J Beans Cafe, Haliburton, 2015
Glass Eagle Studio, Minden, 2006 to 2013
AWARDS & GRANTS
Grant Recipient, Exhibition Assistance, Ontario Arts Council, 2015
Award Recipient, Emerging Artist of the Year, Arts Council Haliburton, 2010
Grant Recipient, Multi-Arts Projects Grant, Newfanglers Art Festival, (Creator/Director), Ontario Arts Council, 2009
Award Recipient, Community & Business Achievement, Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Haliburton Chamber of Commerce, 2008
Nominee, Emerging Artist & Arts Founder of the Year, Arts Council Haliburton, 2008 & 2009
Grant Recipient, Community Project Grant for Newfanglers Art Festival, Minden Hills Cultural Centre Foundation, 2007 to 2009
Grant Recipient, Local Initiatives Program, Haliburton County Development Corporation, 2007
Scholarship Recipient, Haliburton School of Art + Design, Trillium Lakelands District Schoolboard, 2002
ARTS EMPLOYMENT/VOLUNTEER HISTORY
Instructor, Inspiration, Digital Comfort Studio, Arts Council Haliburton Highlands, Haliburton, 2021
Instructor, Inspiration and Idea Development, Minden Hills Cultural Centre, 2020
Instructor, Can That be Art?, Minden Hills Cultural Centre, 2020
Speaker/Presenter, Camp White Pine – Art Camp, Trillium Lakelands District Schoolboard, 2016
Instructor, Mixed Media Madness, Haliburton School of Art + Design – Fleming College, Haliburton, 2011
Artist Member, The Art Hive, Maple Lake Artisans Collective, 2009 to 2012
Curator, The Ethel Curry Gallery, Haliburton, 2009 to present
Assistant Photographer, Trina Crystal Photography, Niagara Falls, 2010
Exhibition Installation Technician, The Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre, Haliburton, 2009 – 2012
Internship, Community Arts Animator, The Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre, 2008 – 2009
Co-Founder and Director, Newfanglers Art Festival, Haliburton, 2007 – 2009
Curator/Director, Members Gallery Exhibitions, The Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre, Haliburton, 2007 – 2009
Member/Director, Arts Council Haliburton Board of Directors, Haliburton, 2008 – 2009
Freelance Arts Columnist, The County Voice Newspaper, Haliburton, 2008
T.A. and Photographer, 60 Bowls, with April Gates/Blackbird Pottery, Artists in the Schools Program, Trillium Lakelands District Schoolboard & Arts Council Haliburton, Haliburton, 2008
Assistant, Kaerai Handmade Jewellery- Guelph Arts & Crafts Show, Haliburton Art & Craft Festival, Guelph, and Haliburton, 2005
Assistant, Mad Cap Hats, Toronto December One of a Kind Show, Toronto, 2005
Co-op T.A., Grade 10 Visual Arts Class, Haliburton Highlands Secondary School, 2003
Apprentice, at Glass Eagle Studio, Minden, 2001 – 2004
Curatorial Assistant, The Ethel Curry Gallery, 2001-2002
EDUCATION
Craft & Design, Textiles Major, Ceramics Minor, Sheridan College, Oakville, 2005 – 2006
Art Fundamentals, Sheridan College, Oakville, 2005
Introduction to Photoshop, Haliburton School of Art + Design, Fleming College, 2009
Recycled Textile Manipulation, Haliburton School of Art + Design, Fleming College, 2006
Tourism Careers Certificate - Ready to Work Program, Fleming College/Job Connect, Haliburton, 2004
Portraiture Development, Haliburton School of Art + Design, 2003
Drum Making and Rhythm, Haliburton School of Art + Design, Fleming College, 2002
Creative Spirit and the Symbolic Abstract, Haliburton School of Art + Design, Fleming College, 2000