The reviews are in....

Heartfelt reviews from my latest show, they made me smile ear to ear!

Opening this week

The group has done it again, the Inkspots annual exhibition opens this Friday.

I have submitted new silkscreen pieces:

"There is rich counsels in the trees"
Linocut and silkscreen assemblage

I have exhibited this Bear piece with this group last year, but it was placed in the wrong location

so I reentered it again this year with hopes that it would get seen this time.

 

It is always a lively event with too much food

if you are in the neighborhood stop by:

643 Project Space

643 Ventura Avenue

Ventura, CA

November 7th from 5-8pm



Get that paddle ready

"Tiny Meadow" color photopolymer etching

5x5 at Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art 

Online bidding starts August 28th!

Click HERE for details

Currently on view

Tucked in the lobby of a high end beauty clinic

A photo montage

There are too many new changes,

and not enough energy to write about them all,

so I will explain as best as I can in pictures:

this is still one of my favorite things to do

my page for a collaborative book, hidden in the background is a mantra:
"the loving are the daring"

Xander will always pose for the camera now...here he is showing what a hot day it was

Theo is camera shy, this is a favorite place for him to nap we call it the bucket

 

You have to use WHOLE eggs in matzo ball soup or it will look like this
*sigh*

I went to printers fair and drooled over letterpresses



I won an award

 

I got to burp my niece, see how scared I look.
She was kind enough to spit up on me just so I could get over my fear of being spit up on.
Reminder to not sweat the small stuff

I am still doing yoga, I can almost do floor bow like this...
except this isn't me and my boobies are bigger

Here I am

Here I am.

I know it has been quiet around these parts...

well after my birthday and NIAW I was spent.

So I took a little bit to rest a spell, so to speak.

 

 

So I went to the opening of CONFLUENCE last night.
I have work in shows in both Los Angeles and Santa Barbara opening on the same night!
How very continental....swanky indeed.
I had to decide which to attend, and found that it was far more realistic to attend the SB event!
Hard decisions, I know
The Juror Peter Frank was there, and very gracious with explaining how he selected the exhibition.
Explaining the difference between juroring a show and curating a show.
He said being a juror is far more suited for the lazy.
Curators seek out work that connects, jurors simply build a show with work provided.
He had 547+ works submitted and took this monumental task t
o reduce the exhibition down to 43 works, 43 artists!
Amazing odds!
I am over the moon to be part of this BEAUTIFUL exhibition:
(click on any image for a larger view)

The entrance to the museum it was a popular exhibition!

 

Nicole Strasburg's painting

 

Amazing seed pod covered in moss, broken china saucers and fur
by award winning artist: Luis Velazquez


 

 

Juror Peter Frank explaining his process
next him him award winner Peter Zaleski's painting

 

 

My piece between the work of Patrica Clarke and Jeffery Stone

Rosemarie Gebhart on the left and a sweet little painting by Nancy Taliaferro

me and my work, and my name is spelt right!

BARREN: life on infertile soil

In honor of NIAW I am posting words or images

I have taken or written about our experience with infertility

A piece I wrote in 2011 for NIAW:

Hubby and I met when we were 21 and 19, I am the cradle robber. It was love at first sight and we have been together since that first date. We waited 10 years before getting married, and another two years before sitting down and talking about how we wanted to become parents. Once we decided, we opened the doors and waited for that positive pregnancy test. In the first year we dealt with my body booby-trapping our plans. The second year we were fighting off the doctors trying to remove my reproductive system. The third year we were trying to simply have a life outside a doctor’s office and then the fourth and fifth years we experienced our miscarriages.

Now we are in our sixth eighth year and we are painfully aware that we are not going to become parents as we had hoped.

In the third year of our infertility journey, I started focusing my artwork on our struggle. As an artist, I turn to my work as a means to process life, and this was one the most complex times in our lives. At first I made the work as a way to comfort myself; I kept the images close and shared them with no one, much like a visual journal. After the first few images were made, something shifted and I started seeing images in my mind all day and in my dreams at night. The comfort became an obsession and a race to capture these feelings and emotions visually.

In October of 2010 I had a public exhibition of my infertility images.

Since the opening, I have received so many kind emails and comments about the show;
so many people poured their hearts out to me and shared stories of their own personal losses.
It has been humbling and amazing.

 

BARREN: life on infertile soil

personal images of infertility

 

The inspiration for the show was not only the discovery of my own infertility, but the silence surrounding it. The longstanding stigma of shame has made us a silent tribe of women. Using photography, printmaking, assemblage and mixed media I examine the quiet reflections of a life without children, in a child-centric world and what it means to navigate daily in those constraints.

I have created an exhibit that draws from my experiences and expresses how infertility has touched me emotionally, changed my self-identity, and affected my relationships with the world around me. The images range from quiet and painterly to bold and vivid personal storytelling; many of the works are from my perspective and allow the viewer to enter that same space. The inclusion of four journal entries next to photographs, as well as a wordless lullaby written and performed by my husband which is heard through headphones while sitting in a rocking chair, make a very private experience very public.

 

The exhibit can be seen HERE

Oh the things I have seen!

Recently I have had the ABSOLUTE privilege to be able to see
some inspiring works of art.

Candy for my eyes and and heart...

yummy.

 

On the 4th I attended first Thursday in Santa Barbara and I chose two venues to visit.

1. the Architecture foundation to see the work of Leslie Lewis Sigler

(sadly I didn't write this fast enough and now her show is packed away)

I find her work is so refreshing and clean and warm and it invites you in....there is a familiar sense that makes it wonderfully comfortable to spend time with.
 

2. I went to see the newest adventure at Sullivan Goss: 

JUST BETWEEN US: Wesley Anderegg, Rafael Perea de la Cabada, Maria Rendon

On Exhibit from April 4, 2013 through June 2, 2013

Curator Jeremy Tessmer selected an amazing collection of contemporary artists and the result is magical and alive and mysterious!

I was only able to get a couple pics as I found myself lost in the work, when I did remember to take a picture the place was crowded with new energy and excited visitors!

"tight rope" and "Matador"
by Wesley Anderegg

a small selection of ceramic platters also by Mr. Anderegg

Encyclopedia Series 1 A to Animal Life
by Rafael Perea de la Cabada
(He painted directly on stretched book covers)

detail to show the texture of the surface....luscious

 

Sadly I wasn't able to get any images of Ms Rendon's work...it is breathtaking and ethereal...so check out the link above to view proper pictures.

 

Then this week I was able to see another true treat for the eyes!

I attended a private small viewing of SWARM at LotusLand...

I had read a lot about the show HERE and HERE so I was quite excited to have the chance to see it in person. I attended with a woman's art group I am part of and it was such an amazing treat!

I felt like quite the VIP being able to view the work so intimately

*click on any of the images for a larger version*

The group was asked to enter via the private back entrance,
so I got to stroll the grounds a little bit before getting to the meeting point!

the room where we met, the main house and first exposure to the work of Penelope Stewart
with her giant handdrawn Beeskep
Ink on Japanese rice paper

here are two smaller versions and a black glass moulded one
the lines were so beautiful !

One of I several Cynthia James paintings...lovely! 



Stephanie Wilde's work " Golden Bees" was intricate and highly detailed, so much so, we were offered magnifying loops to view her incredible brush work.
She uses a single hair to paint...it was much like a sand mandala for me.
The ability to see single grains to sand
So beautiful and meditative

detail through the looking glass

more detail for another work

Ethan Turpin and Jonathan Smith's bee cell room
 and Rose-Lynn Fisher's electron microscope photographs
illuminated under spot lights

inside the cell looking up with some fellow art and bee lovers

the full installed Penelope Stewart beeswax room
1000lbs of wax was used to make this room
the different colors reflect what the bees were feeding on, as wax was shipped from all over the united states
You can read her process HERE

detail of the reproduced tiles and pineapples

 

So inspiring and so alive, I think this year will offer many surprises in the art scene.

I am very much looking forward to seeing new works from friends and creating some myself.

You still have time to see  "Just Between Us" and "SWARM" (the garden is not too shabby either)

 if you are able, I whole heartily endorse it!

 

I'm here, keep your pants on....

OK so I have been busy...really busy, filling my head with images and sounds and sights...

I will share some of them with you now....

OK I ate this in the town that the Twilight boy was spotted in nursing his broken heart.
I kind of wanted to see him, even though I am not a twi fan...but I just had a lovely conversation with my sweetie instead



Here is the Edward Hopper painting that made me weep
at the SFMOMA.
(Click on image to see it larger)

Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Untitled (Rat and Bear, Sleeping), 2008/2009; installation

This is a piece called Rat and Bear Sleeping...that scared the shit out of me...they breathe...well look like they are breathing and I was afraid that they would get up and grab me.
I think I am still a little traumatized from it.

I got a head cold...I slept on the couch so I could sleep sitting up...it is not pretty.
I am giving you real life here people!

I completed my edition of bookplates for this show

This is a neighbor showing off his ocean caught fish...

much to the delight of the neighborhood girls.

The fish was horribly embarrassed

This is what I saw last week in TJ's, little girls in 4.5inch heels...

I am not sure I have moved past this either.

The wall of yet sold artwork from the local art auction.
It was hot and packed and there was loads of tequila

building next door to SFMOMA
click on image to see it larger and discover what I saw

More words in my next post...