Morning in Paris

I've decided to start sharing photos that tickle my fancy,

 some are new some old...but all are loved

I was once a student living in the city of light, 

often that meant I walked alone on the streets thinking great thoughts.

Mother Natures helper

I've decided to start sharing photos that tickle my fancy,

 some are new some old...but all are loved

The magic and wonder of bees:

Keep it green

I've decided to start sharing photos that tickle my fancy,

 some are new some old...but all are loved:

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

I love the smell of ink in the morning

I am rounding the corner, I am putting the final touches on the big Artwalk Project.
I completed 4 woodcuts for this event...
I still need to figure out the window display...hopefully that will come to me
in a dream or the bath...a clear vision of what I am suppose to do.
Until then I will package, label, list and market what I've made.

The studio smells of ink and baby oil
it smells like work!

Lets start back at the begining...

*****

OK, So I am soooo very behind on posting I thought I would start by posting the posting I have been wanting to post for a long time...so we are going to time travel a little.

 

Back before my world got a little crazy, before now...way back in October I went to the LA Printers Fair. This is a fair for all things printmaking, I am in a personal geek heaven and amongst my people.

Thankfully, I am not the only one taking photos of machines, presses and printmaking type.

In fact I am only one in a crowd doing the exact same thing.
 I would go as far as to say it is expected to take pictures!

Linotype printer at work, the sounds of the machine makes me cry from sheer beauty.
Linotype makes lead slugs of lines of print, the operator types it out and the machine casts the type as he types!
Many of these machines were melted down post WWII
See one at work HERE

 

The Printmaking Museum opens its doors annually for this fair and shows off its amazing collection of old and still working presses. Believe it or not, I first heard of this museum in Carson via Huell Howser on one of his whats great about California shows...(pat on the back Huell, rest in peace)
 

I have made the trek to lovely downtown Carson twice now and it is a whole day event.

I go with a graphic design friend and she and I pack snacks and slather sunscreen and head out around 7:30am to get there by 10am when they open the gates. Not only can you see how ALL the presses work, but a far number of them are hands on demonstrations! So last year I got to print off a field press from the civil war. SOOOOOO COOLIO

 

This year it was even more packed and I am proud to say the crowd was 75% women printers!

 

The museum itself is only one part of the fair, there is also the vendor sections that run through the museum and into the back of the building and then into a large warehouse that stores, sad and forgotten presses (many are for sale at the fair) and then you file into the book arts building.

my girlfriend

 

Which houses "my girlfriend" the letterpress that I would tackle someone for.
This is one of the hands on demonstration stops and I got to print my own poster to take home...and figure out where to put.
 

This years fair had an amazing collection of printers making stationary and my pockets were lighter by the end of the day, but really, this was hardly bad, as I met some amazing fellow printmakers, introduced myself to people I was exhibiting with but had never met and got a bag full of lovely little gifts for myself, and maybe a friend or two.

Fugu Fugu press's booth

 

One of the many highlights was seeing and meeting Krank Press. I had spied their cards in the William Sonoma in Santa Barbara and was able to find out what I job like that really looks like. Owner/printmaker Elinor was very generous with describing the reality of this monumental job, the contract and a few tips on where to source a letterpress when I was ready to make the leap and had the space.

Chandler and Price floor letter presses

wooden type for sale

 

Another great inspiration was talking with Monique from Metal Doily Press she had attended the fair the year before and was so inspired she promised herself she would try and be a vendor the following year...she met her goal and in order to not overtax herself in the effort, she shared a table with a friend. Very inspiring and put that little bee in my ear and brain for this years fair.


Backwards and upside down,
I knew this skill from elementary school would come in handy someday!
(Learn, Print, Play)

1850's Proof Press
I have my eye on you my pretty!

 

All in all I was overjoyed once again after leaving, inspired and felt like I had found my tribe.
I might not be making a living yet as a printmaker, but it is for sure in my blood,
as I can not imagine a life without it.

There were too many AWESOME printmakers to mention in this post, so I invite you to check out the list of vendors and check them out one by one.
I was thrilled to meet The Library press, and Pup and Pony press, as well as ....you get the point.

 

Sylvia White Gallery Tonight



click picture to see the entries



Be A Saint Art Auction with Sylvia White:

"As a show of support to further our commitment to Ventura: California’s New Art City, Sylvia White Gallery is proud to continue the tradition we started last year, with our second annual Valentine’s Day, Be A Saint, ArtAdvance.  This unusual event will include a juried art auction.

Each artist selected by the jurors, will be entered into the ArtAdvance Lottery.

One lucky artist will be the grand prize winner, picked at random to receive $1000 cash.

The number of $500 winners will be determined at the event, depending on money raised."

I have a piece in this show, and both hubby and I will be there to root it on.

Hopefully tonight it will be a in a bidding war

You know what I mean....

Fire breathing dragon, art purchased from the 8 year old Ruby who lives across the street.
A sweet deal at .25cents
Ruby says: "I draw animals really well"
I agree

So I have been juggling many plates these days...work and work and life.

Aren't we all though...

I attended a memorial service this last week, and although no one likes to think about death.

It had me thinking a lot about death, mine, family lost and still here and my hubby.

Frankly, It shook me up pretty good.

I was thankful for a date that night with my sweetie to try

and

reset all my fears back up on a shelf and enjoy the present.

Murphy's law had a good laugh that night, as the concert we went to had a lot of songs about loss, heartbreak and untimely deaths.

I guess I needed to address my fears...or at least acknowledge them.

In light of this "eye-opening" experience, I have started to take vitamins again, had my doctor look at some funny bumps on my leg and am slowly walking away from bread and dairy....

slowly, I mean there is no reason to act suddenly don't need to shock the system or anything.

Gosh I love mint chip ice cream....

We have also begun to actively looked at when we can take a little vacation.

We had a little break this last July joining some friends at a lake, but hubs and I have not taken a good vaca since our "honeymoon" two years after we got married...so that would be 2004!

In the meantime, I have been making new work and submitting it where I can. As I told a friend, my goal is to make my husband a kept man...he has done so much for me it is the least I could do.

He thinks this is a fine idea as well.

I was lucky enough to see my friend Tiger Huang's exhibit at The Ojai Center for Art.

It was an amazing exhibition of traditional Chinese paintings of animals and landscapes mixed with his current loose figure work. Tiger studied traditional calligraphy in China and the central installation piece at the show was an amazing display of this tradition.

the piece started with a large rectangle of paper on the floor that had line after line of character brushwork, on top of this lay practice books splayed open and face down on these papers, surrounding a wooden box that was filled with meticulous lines of characters that were pulled from the box and pulled over the ceiling supports. The size and detail in this piece left me silent, to me it displayed such discipline and focus and love for his art. I was inspired to find a greater focus and purpose.

Still silenced from this work I wandered home slowly and found a lovely meditation spot but a mere couple miles from home.

A reminder to grow and plant ideas and water them.

I am a sucker for a good garden what can I say...

plus there were baby goats!

I have made a few new pieces one was just accepted into a juried show that offers Art Advances, this means I am in a drawing for possibly winning some cold hard cash as well as selling some work!

I submitted three pieces but am thrilled with the one they chose:

"A Sense of Something" 2011

this piece has all my hallmarks:

Phone poles, clouds, my scratch thru with the ink and it is PURPLE!!

Hopefully someone will love it and take it home

Until the next epiphany, I am going to be in the garden grounding my thoughts

 and pulling weeds, it is good for the soil and my soul.

Dizzy

I started writing a really long post about the last few days...but it seemed too word laden...so instead I will post a small album of images instead...I am a visual story teller anyways....
I am dizzy from trying to process all that has happened in the last couple of days.

front window as viewable from the street.

When I got my first glimpse I fought back tears of extreme joy and thanks

a lull in the crowd

two people looking at two of my three images at the show

Impressive as they needed to wait to get this view.

the next morning I scrubbed what was left of my mascara off my cheeks

and spent the morning at a holiday boutique at my husbands work.

I sold these little terrariums, necklaces and paper goods

The sea on the way home to two more art openings!

It was so striking, I stopped and took a deep breathe of the sea air and watched the gulls play in the wind

"One Night Stand"

an impromptu one night show of the printmaking from the Inkspots of Ventura

at Project 643 space

Some of the artwork for sale at the VITA benefit

Christmas trees being delivered to Home Depot....

I had never seen this happen before, I always see them all lined up in lots but never right off the train container and to the shop. I was struck by it.

Big Girl

The piece that made the show card:
"The warm wind filled the air with dry earth"

I dropped off three new pieces of work to a big time gallery. I awoke early, anxious and excited....but mostly anxious.

I had a short but real questioning with myself about the quality and value of my work...it was a short speech.

I drove into Santa Barbara and delivered my work to a white walled gallery, and chatted with the super nice  lady who changed the spelling of my name and took my work into the back, behind the scenes. I could hear her walk away and feel a bubbling sense of pride with every one of her steps.

I had hoped to get some work into this gallery, I had said a little word....and here I am 1 year later.

WOW

I am still in shock, but have many distractions before Thursday so I think that floating feeling will last for a little while longer.

To ground myself even further, I spent the afternoon making terriaums for the two holiday boutiqes I have coming up this week. Living gifts...life in a cubicle.

A new Ink Friend

Emerald Bay at Dusk by Michelle Murdock @ Quail Lane Press

I took a little break last week to get some R&R with the hubby....we went to join some friends at the Serene lakes in Northern California. It was heavenly...

Before we headed up I did some research to find out who was making what, up in that part of the world and found the AMAZING printmaker Michelle Murdock

Feeling a bit like a mild stalker we made plans to attend Truckee Days this last Thursday and meet her.

We were not disapointed, while my hubby bought some homemade pie to take back to our friends at the lake I met the talented artist!

Her booth was overflowing with color and beautiful images!

Michelle makes work about the enviroment that does not harm the enviroment!

She works in Linocut and Letterpress and often combines them both!
Being an artist who loves to find new non toxic processes she was a new friend in the printmaking world instantly.

Michelle produces her prints using a a small rotary press in her studio on Quail Lane on the west shore of Lake Tahoe. A lot of her prints come out of her daily life in Tahoe-Taking walks with the dogs and looking around the forest at the trees and birds. She uses the reduction method which allows her to create multiple color editions with a single linoleum plate.

We were lucky enough to purchase a Lino poster that she had for sale, that I had also spocked out in the Etsy shop and now it hangs in our home!

Sailors and Sirens

I love her work and am so glad that I went to the art fair to meet her, it had me buzzed for at least an hour afterwards. It is thrilling to meet another printmaker, another woman printmaker at that!

Forrest Haze, Summer

 

Laundry

Special order for "dinner party" cards

I have been seduced by linocut...I love to make them!

I love the process of carving and then after hours and hours of chipping away at time little bits of linoleum it is time to ink and see the image come to life....magic I say.

So when it was time to settle in and think what I was going to contribute to this years Inkspots Director Series Folio...Linocut was the first thing that came to mind.

We are a group of 12 women and this year 8 of us are participating in the folio.

We try and create a folio to accompany our annual show.

We create a limited number of folios and then package them all together and sell them at the show.

The buyer gets an example of each artists work all packaged up into a pretty presentation package.

This years show is in September and called "Think Ink!"

The show will have work from each of us as well as the folio.

This years folio is going to be less expensive but just as impressive, each of the artists are talented in their own right and we all have VERY different styles so it makes for a great show and interesting art.

I wanted to make a linocut that reflected a memory from childhood...

I created "A Stitch In Time" two color linocut with sewn detail.

Halting production

With a big pile of packaged goods in front of me, my sweetie lovingly told me to

 "stop production, you have enough"

So friends, I am done making for Artwalk.

I only have to clip a few threads and make an inventory sheet....then tomorrow we set the tent in place.

World of color!

cupcake print

handprinted lino with added hand coloring

Big work today; lots of assembly and packing for next weekends big gig....hopefully someone will want these items and I won't have to do the walk of shame back to the car with all the same goods I took from it hours beforehand.

I added color to the prints and I really like how they look, just waiting for the mats to arrive next week and they will be packed and ready to roll.

My newest set of prints of the cowboy seem to be really growing on me.
My nerves might get the better of me and I will make more new linos before next week
These little flags came out great...or at least I like them.
Hopefully they will be a big hit too.

cowboy flag

And the nominees are....

Local gallery owner Sylvia White is holding a "Be A Saint" Art Auction to benefit local Ventura artists and give away a $1000 art grant to a randomly selected artist that is in the show. The call went out two weeks ago, only Ventura Artists (living or working in Ventura) could apply. The grant is to be awarded and spent within city limits. Great idea!!

Over 280 "quality applications" were submitted of which 35 artists were selected for the Auction. I submitted work along with a lot of my fellow artists....here are the images that made it.

Although I am not among them, fellow Inkspot member Ginny Furmanski is!
Ginny is very deserving of this honor and I have my fingers crossed that she will do great things should she win the grant!

If you have the funds, check out this unique Art Auction and help support the arts!
Here is a link to the gallery and the fundraiser

Great Success

Artwalk Ventura 2009 was a great experience for me.
I was able to talk about my art to many people, explain the process for my work and hear what people reacted to.
I was asked several times, if I taught a class....as I do not yet, this has made me wonder if I should consider doing just that further down the road.
I use to teach, and found that I liked it very much. I learned a lot about myself, my abilites and limits.

I shared my boothspace with the very talented Lynn LeTourneau who was selling her beautiful and colorful monoprints, many of which I wished to take home!

Two very long days later and just a couple of sales and Artwalk 2009 was over. I met so many great artists and people and heard about things happening in the city and around town.

I feel so lucky to live in such a saturated art community, in fact my side of town is crawling with us creative folks!!

Michelle and Guy were wonderful hosts to all us artists and feed, cared and protected us the whole weekend. I can not thank them enough for the oppoortunity, the fun and the CHEESECAKE!!

I still have lots of great art for sale at very affordable prices and am looking forward to seeing it spread to the four directions.
If you see something email me, lets make it yours!!

All weekend long!!

Image Monica Wiesblott © 1990-2009

This image and many many others will be available for sale this weekend, prices start as low as $10 a piece!
Shuttle Stop #7 on the Artwalk map, come and join the fun

Busy Busy!!

My workspace is a wreck, I have one project after another going...

I am not complaining, don't get me wrong....I feel so lucky to have all these chances to show and have my work be seen.

I am signed up for Artwalk here in Ventura, I (along with a few others) will be representing Seabreeze Studios.

Stoneworks Studios is the background for my booth space, Michelle Chapin puts together quite a scene! Artists set up spaces in one of the COOLEST spaces along the avenue. A literal oasis in the middle of the cement, a garden of Eden. Food, music and art all day long for two whole days!

As my friend Noodle says:

" For 18 years Michelle has participated in Art Walk. She opens her space up to other artists in Ventura to display work. She loves art and has a community spirit. She likes to throw a party and have live music, delicious food. Michelle and her partner Guy are also organizing another community art installation project like their "Door Project" with chairs and bicycles, called "Park and Ride." This will also be on display.

I have a shade and a table to set up my goods and I will spend the weekend sitting and people watching and if I am really lucky, selling some small images!

I will be there from 1-9pm on Saturday October 25th and Noon -5pm Sunday October 26th!!

I have printed a bunch of small black and white images, some color images and a few artist prints. All will be ready for frames.

So back to work as I also have to get my submission ready for the Dia De Los Muertos juried show!!

those are due next week...