It's Coooooming... ArTrails!

The cards are in, so it must be official:
Visit us during ArTrails, Sonoma County's Open Studios:
October 13 & 14, & 20 & 21, 10-5 each day.

Visit the ArTrails Site for online catalog, downloadable maps, etc.
It's a great season to visit our area.
And if you live nearby, consider attending the preview exhibition:
at the Arts Council Gallery,
529 5th St, Santa Rosa, Saturday, September 29th, from 4-6pm.

There is a second preview location:
the Graton Gallery, with an opening on Sunday, from 3-7pm.

something new

Yes, with all the work I should be finishing, I'm starting new things.
What can you do?
Starting with some collage materials, the palette's going in a different direction here. My favorite thing on the wall right now, but quite a ways to go. (hence the photo-shop-ic haze).

an Impromptu Show

Tony and I got the chance to hang some work for a few weeks at Frame of Mind, the very fine frame shop in Forestville where Tony works a couple of days a week. Our stuff will be up through about Sept. 28th, but hours are somewhat limited, so call in advance (707) 887-8530.1) two of my paintings, and a number of my framed giclee prints.

2) On left, Tony's first large-scale print on canvas, from the painting "This Moment"; Leslie assists clients with framing; my stuff behind




3) Tony in front of his "Whoops!"-- acrylic on panel,
from the collection of Pati

landscape painting demo

Remember that landscape class I'm teaching?
I started the canvas (16 x 20") at left last week, talking about trying to see values (the range of lights & darks) in a scene-- and decided to keep working on it. The center panel shows the values converted to colors, roughly blocked in, and the third panel adds detail. Tomorrow we'll be out in another local park. Thankfully, it seems the heat wave has broken. It's still foggy here, at noon.
(click on image to see details!)

some stuff I'm working on...

Did I mention I'd been in an 'abstract' mood?

left, 25 x 40", acrylic on mylar, in progress;
center, 30 x 40" acrylic on canvas, " "
The final days of pure, wide open summer are upon me-- I start teaching Tuesday evening, and all the Saturdays from here til Open Studios (mid-October). Which is okay. I've had a busy summer, with travels and social stuff-- though not quite as productive in the studio as I'd hope. It seems that for artists (me, at least), there's always that need to try to balance structure with un-structured time, avoiding an excess of either. By the end of summer, the structure of part-time teaching seems like just the right amount.

Good-bye, Elizabeth

We were out of town for a couple days-- and today I see news that Elizabeth Murray died. Tony & I had seen her recently in a short interview (part of Art21, which we got via Netflix) and Tony had recently taken to quoting her from that. Primarily her saying, 'you always think its gonna get easier, but it never does' (painting). I paraphrase.
For more about her, click here.
There are videos of her speaking about art on this site for teachers. (once you click past some the the intro stuff, there are a lot of additional features)

Opening Reception...yesterday!

6-8pm, Donna Seager Gallery, 851 4th Street, San Rafael.
And if I don't see you there, I'll take some pictures for ya!

shades of green

Sorry, dear readers, I have become a Very Occassional Blogger. Perhaps its just a summer thing. I was in Minnesota/Wisconsin for a week for a grand family reunion, celebrating the 90th birthday of my grandmother, also, my mom's birthday, and my nephew Andrew's graduation from high school. Let me tell you, those mid-westerners know how to party!

So, here's the studio today. The larger painting I started-- maybe a month ago, just getting been back in to it. The smaller striped ones, started yesterday.

Delivered to Donna's

I'm excited to have some paintings in the upcoming (month of August) show, Fresh Paint, at the Donna Seager Gallery in San Rafael. I dropped four paintings off today. The opening reception will be August 11th, from 6-8pm. Please come if you can!
Of course, this all meant that I had to finally put finishing touches on a couple of them including this one:

Begun...back in April with the collaging of a vintage tablecloth across the canvas, the bird flew in in early May, and then just sat there. (one of the benefits of this blog, I can look back & trace a work's progress) I liked the loose drippiness of the bird disappearing into the background... Anyhow, it finished up with the addition of botanical elements and butterflies, all inspired by the garden, where we've planted lots of pollinator-friendly plants. It's more tightly detailed than the direction I would say I'm currently headed in, but, that's what the painting seemed to ask for. The painting below also began with the vintage fabric seen at bottom left and top right. As often is the case when I use collage elements, the painting proceeded in response to the colors and shapes within the fabric, leading in part, to the cloud-like forms you see.
Here are the four paintings I took in.

Hey, that's my painting!

Tony's sharp eye recognized this big painting as one of mine-- done oh, 13 years ago. Seen here via a designer's website (click here to see it bigger, and not oddly compressed) I believe it was rented via Hang Art Gallery 5 or more years ago (I still have that painting) for a loft 'staging' in SF. Funny , huh?
I've been talking some lately about working more abstractly, and I bet some people who know me through my more recent paintings don't know of this period in my work. Yup, I came out of grad school almost a minimalist, and gradually the world crept back in. This piece, originally inspired by many walks in the Western Mass. woods, pre-figures the on-going paintings which I refer to as my 'stripe' series.

Opening Reception Reminder

Tomorrow evening, 4-6pm will be the opening reception for 'Three Curators, Three Artists' at the Cultural Arts Center Gallery, featuring Tony's recent work, along with ceramics by Hiroshi Fuchigami, and costume design/photography by Margaret Hatcher. More info is here . Please join us, if you find yourself within 'striking distance' of Santa Rosa!

other people's studios:

David Turner's studio in--Albany? El Cerrito? East Bay, anyways.
A couple of weeks ago my friend Pati took me to visit David's studio, because she knew I would love his work.
See more, in his garden setting, over on my garden blog.

color / texture

To see paintings, click here.
Here are a few things that have come through the camera lately...

...and then there's this:

(in progress, 30 x 40", oil, over acrylic)
This is something new I'm working on (both are details).
The blue flower is borage, a plant that grows quite freely, almost weed-like in our yard. The orange arcs were inspired by the blooming echeveria (? also known as Hens & Chicks)-- visible from my studio door.

Below, the source of inspiration:
the view from the studio door these days.
and a close-up of a borage blossom (edible).

Photos from Friday

Friday was an art-ful evening for us: we made it to Donna Seager's Gallery (San Rafael) for a slide talk by Heather Wilcoxon & Inez Storer-- once Professor & Graduate Student (at SFAI), now good friends-- these two share amazingly similar, though highly unusual, upbringings. Both were raised on Hollywood Movie Backlots, and that's just the beginning... They're showing together through the end of the month... (one of Inez' on left, Heather's on right)

Then it was over to Oakland for the Art Murmur-- the collective opening receptions for a growing handful of galleries clustered together in a formerly sketchy part of town...previously written about here.
If you plan to go to the Murmur in the future, be advised: the galleries now close down at 9pm. And they mean it. (neighbor's complaints, I guess).

So we didn't see everything.
BUT, we really enjoyed the show at Mercury 20 (once again)-- this time paintings by Margaret Chavigny and Sheila Metcalf Tobin. Sheila's include delicately rendered line drawings of flowers and plants, on woodgrained panels, Margaret's are layered out of a mix of mediums-- including collage & encaustic (click on their names to go to their websites for more images, statements, and info on their processes...)
And next door at Industrielle, our friend Elisa Carozza was hanging a small preview of her show to come in Sept & Oct.
And this other cool artist (sorry I didn't catch the name, but maybe someone will send it to me?!)


...And last but certainly not least, a retrospective mention:
The last time we went down for the Art Murmur was duriing Laura Van Duren's great sculpture show (also at --where else?--Marcury 20). At the time I was on my very short blog hiatus-- (I warn you, I feel another coming on!) so I never got to post about her show. Which really was fabulous.

(Laura & Tony provide scale)

Calling 'em Done

(left, 48 x 48". Inspired by the blue fabric collaged in the upper left)



(10 x 10": each, acrylic & collage on canvas)

miscellaneous studio moments

(click to enlarge 'em)

Continuing...

(work in progress, 4 x 6')

A show I look forward to seeing...

soon. (below, 'Ellipsis Near & Far', and detail of same...)
by Margaret Wall-Romana, at Bucheon Gallery



Read the Chronicle review by Kenneth Baker here, and see photos from opening night (scroll down) here...

East Coast studios #3: Carol Struve & Stephen Niccolls

Carol & Steve were two of our fabulous hosts during our East Coast Stay. One of their big recent projects has been fixing up the beautiful 3-story house they bought within the past year in Kingston, New York (on the Hudson River, about an hour & a half from NYC).
I hadn't seen recent work from Carol in some time, and things have changed! So it was exciting to take a tour through her portfolio of monoprints, mostly done during a fellowship at the Women's Studio Workshop (also near their home. On a rainy day later in the trip, we visited there-- very cool place.) Carol's new work is more completely abstract (earlier work had abstracted landscape forms), celebrates color and color relationships, and is very much a result of exploration & discoveries made through the print-making process. I think we all wanted to take a monoprint workshop with her by the end. (More about Carol here-- click on her name...)



STEPHEN NICCOLLS
I posted about Stephen's work here a while back, while he was having a show at the Van Brunt Gallery; but it was nice to see some of the paintings in person (funny how those little jpgs don't do a big painting justice!)
Here's one shot in his studio on the second floor of their house-- and at right are 2 paintings culled from his website where you can go to see more.

Below are a couple of his lovely, subtle, idiosyncratic gouache pieces.


We miss you guys already!
Thank you so much for conversations, tour-guiding and general hospitality!



Below: playing duelling cameras with Stephen, and L to R, Tony, Stephen, Bev & Carol, while at Bev's ... .