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Author Archives: mariecameron
Naked Ladies
Busy, Busy, Busy!
Fresh of the easel – these little 6″ x 6″ oil paintings on cradled panels were dropped into deep gold floater frames and popped over to curated. (309 Capitola Ave) in Capitola, California for the 37th Annual Art and Wine festival this weekend (Sept. 14th & 15th) Over 150 fine artists and 22 Santa Cruz Mountain wineries, local music and amazing food. Admission is FREE. Shuttles will be running into town from the Capitola Mall every 20 min.
Lifeguard Tower 7
Naked Ladies
Storm Cloud
Lifeguard Tower 11
Rose Garden Blooming in the Studio
I have a little rose garden blooming in my studio, all Edens. I’m glad I managed to take a little snap as several have sold already! Also seen here is one of the many fabulous demitasses that my friend (and children’s former pre-school teacher) had given me as well as the painting it inspired by it (that I will be giving to her as a thank you gift for the treasure trove). The canary, from Montebello Road in Campbell, is a future model for one of my Birds and Teacup paintings. More details about the paintings are listed in my Portfolio under the Flora subheading.
Eden Rose I – Sold
Eden Rose II – Sold
Eden Rose III – Available
Eden Rose IV – Available
Eden Rose V – Available
Eden Rose VI – Available
Eden Rose VI
Eden Rose V
Eden Rose IV
Eden Rose III
Eden Rose II
Eden Rose I
Pink Traces
Circle of Truth – Debut!
Circle of Truth debuting at NUMU is based on the idea of Telephone, a game where children are seated in a circle and a statement is whispered along in a chain from ear to ear, until it comes out at the end as something unrecognizable. But what if this was done visually, with each artist asked to find the truth in the painting that came before them with a responding piece of their own. What elements, if any, might be carried through to the end?
And so the game began 9 years ago with Los Angeles based curators, Laura Hipke and Shane Gaffogg arranging for a sponsor for all the canvases, a specialized traveling crate and 49 participating artists: Kim Abeles, Lisa Adams, Lita Albuquerque, Charles Arnoldi, Lisa Bartleson, Billy Al Bengston, Justin Bower, Virginia Broersma, Randall Cabe, Rhea Carmi, Greg Colson, Jeff Colson, Stanley Dorfman, Cheryl Ekstrom, Jimi Gleason, Rives Granade, Ron Griffin, Alex Gross, Shane Guffogg, Lynn Hanson, Doro Hofmann, Tim Isham, Kim Kimbro, Bari Kumar, Cal Lane, Margaret Lazzari, Mark Licari, Dan Lutzick, Deborah Martin, Susan McDonnell, Christopher Monger, Jim Morphesis, Andy Moses, Juan Carlos Munoz Hernandez, Gary Panter, Daniel Peacock, Bruce Richards, Michael Andrew Rosenfeld, Ed Ruscha, Eddie Ruscha, Paul Ruscha, John Scane, Vonn Sumner, Matthew Thomas, Alison Van Pelt, Michelle Weinstein, Ruth Weisberg, Robert Williams and Todd Williamson.
The beauty in the show is moving from piece to piece and seeing how each artist chose to react to the previous work, which threads did they decide to pull through to explore in their own work, how did they reinterpret them into their own truth. It’s a fascinating visual conversation that flows through the entire exhibit. The show continues at NUMU until March 10 when it will go on to exhibit in other museums. P.S. check out the exhibition catalogue for illuminating artist essays! Also, click on any to the artist’s names here for links to their website>
Circle of Truth curators, Shane Guffogg and Laura Hipke, former members of Pharmaka (co-founded by Guffogg), a defunct painter’s group museum/gallery in downtown Los Angeles, with NUMU’s Executive Director Maureen Cappon-Javey.
Laura Hipke, Los Angeles based artist and curator.
Shane Guffogg, Los Angeles based artist, curator, lecturer and television host.
We were lucky to have a number of the artists drive up from LA for the opening and talk a little about their work and their experience being part of the cirlcle.
Shane Guffogg started off the process with an oil painting based on the golden ratio, a great launching point to explore artistic universal truths.
Vonn Sumner, known for his figurative work, responded to the formal elements of color and geometry for his piece.
Doro Hofmann drew on the idea of air mail and dynamic communication from the letter in the painting she was reacting to. Incorporating some lines of German philosophy and some great raking angles from the preceding work.
Paul Ruscha followed with some angled text of his own with “dead ducks falling”, perhaps inspired by flight in the previous work.
Dan Lutzick took on elements of color and form, the peace symbol from the visiting painting transforming into rust colored sprinkler covers from his studio, but rejecting a singular truth, wanted to refer to the idea of multiple realities existing at once through his screen grid and use of multiples.
Daniel Peacock picked up on Lutzick’s crowned woman and orange hues – snap!
Todd Williamson pulled a streamlined linear movement of monochromatic hues in reaction to the preceding morass of color and marks.
The crate that was specially designed to safely contain two canvases (one potentially still wet) and one blank.
Exhibitions & Collection Manager Cristiano Colantoni received a warm round of applause for such a beautiful job installing the show.
Robert Williams, founder of Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine.
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Laura Hipke and Todd Williamson
The final piece was by Ed Ruscha (seen here with curator Shane Guffogg) zeroing in on a distorted bit of text in the previous work.
Iwasawa Reception
Thank you to everyone who came out to the “Conversations With Culture” reception last Saturday at Iwasawa Oriental Art, your interest, support and company was so very much appreciated! The show, part of Asia Week San Francisco Bay Area, continues on until tomorrow, Saturday, October 13th.
Meticulously styled after a traditional Japanese mercantile building, this has been Iwasawa Oriental Art’s 36th year in operation!
Love it when my dear friends show up for me at my events, so grateful to have them in my personal and professional life!
Artist Theresa Giammattei dropped in!
Evelyn Consorti – mixed media
With my oil paintings Mr. Katayama’s Peony and Beijing Grey and Ken Matsumoto’s vase.
Lorraine Lawson and Gallerist Kumiko Iwasas Vadas and her apron which says “Best Merchandise, Best Price”.
Reception repast.
Patrali Paul – acrylic
Patrali and Lawson in the garden.
Lorraine Lawson mixed media with a stone vase sculpture by Ken Matsumoto.
Ken Matsumoto Vases with a Lorraine Lawson mixed media painting
James Ong with When Dreams Wake Up.
James Ong describing his process to gallery visitors.
James Ong acrylic print.
So happy to see artist Miguel Machuca drop by!
Gallery vsitors.
Hiroko Ohno – Galaxy – pigment on paper
Brooklyn based Hiroko Ohno with Whitney Modern Gallerist, Suzanne Whitney Smedt.
Hiroko Ohno – reconstructed painting pigment on paper
Ann Waltonsmith, Board Chairperson for Hakone with Hiroko Ohno.
Rosalio Vargas and Gallerist Kumiko Iwasawa Vadas.
Rosalio Vargas with gallery visitors.
Rosalio Vargas’s splatter cars.
Lorraine Lawson with Jeweler Erin Yoshizumi
Erin Yoshizumi’s work can be found at AtelierThe Hun.etsy.com
Conversations With Culture
I’m very excited to be exhibiting in “Conversations With Culture” at Iwasawa Oriental Art, 75 Universtiy Ave in downtown Los Gatos! It’s an exhibition arranged by Gallerist, Kumiko Iwasawa Vadas in her gorgeous, authentically Japanese Gallery to be part of Asia Week San Francisco Bay Area 2018! Like Asia Week, the show runs October 5-14 and there is a special reception TODAY from 1-5 pm with exhibiting artists, Hiroko Ohno, James Ong, Lorraine Lawson, Patrali Paul, Evelyn Consorti and myself giving artists talks (maybe around 2 pm). The show is free and there will be wonderful refreshments.
Artists are like sponges, soaking up all kinds of influences along their path but what they squeeze out in their work should not be a mere imitation of something they’ve seen before but something new, filtered through their own idiosyncratic prism of experience, perspective and vision. The paintings I create are rooted in my own personal narrative and the manner in which I handle paint, color and line are certainly my own but I feel there is a certain Asian resonance when it comes to composition and depth of field in many of my paintings. There is also a shared reverence for the beauty of nature and sense of season.Having said this, It is quite natural that when I paint a flowering cherry branch or a lily floating on a pond, or a peony in full bloom, I can’t help but think of all the exquisite depictions of these very flowers by Japanese and Chinese artists over the centuries and this rich tradition will inevitably pull me in that direction. But it happens even with less obvious subject matter. My paintings have been made better through my exposure to Japanese prints and Chinese brush paintings as well as their influence on artists I much admire like Whistler, Van Gogh and Monet. Often this cultural conversation is taking place in our heads without us even realizing it! I will be showing the following Asian influenced paintings that I have done over the years and I will talk about how this influence came about and how it has affected my work.
Beijing Grey
Oil on canvas
48″ x 30″
Pond Lily Magenta
Oil on canvas
24″ x 24″
Mr. Katayama’s Peony
Oil on canvas
24″ x 24″
Together We Will at RISE!
Karla Albright of the Los Gatos chapter of TWW/Indivisible Los Gatos caught the Gutfreund Cornet Art show, RISE: Empower, Change and Action!, the day it opened and approached Whitney Modern for a special tour so the rest of her group could take it in! Though it is a national exhibition, a number of Bay Area artists were happy to get together again and share some of the inspiring motivations behind their social justice work in the gallery.
Please note that if you click on any of the names of artists and organizations, etc, in bold in this post, you will open a link to their website!
Suzanne Whitney Smedt, welcoming us all to her beautiful contemporary art gallery, Whitney Modern, located on the second floor of 24 N Santa Cruz Ave in downtown Los Gatos. The gallery typically represents twelve fine artists but has teamed up with Gutfreund Cornett Art for this specific summer show curated by Karen Gutfreund, Sherri Cornett, Marianne McGrath and Suzanne Whitney Smedt.
Karen Gutfreund reading Maya Angelou’s poem, Still I Rise from the exhibition catalogue, on which Ceciley Blanchard (Jackson Tennessee) had based her photographic series. I love hearing that read (or sung by Ben Harper)!
Irene Carvajal (Belmont, California) with her (what) do YOU think? desk with the positive messages we’d wish we’d grown up with carved into the wood. You can even take rubbings with the graphite pencils and paper provided, if there is a resonating message you’d like to bring home with you.
Priscilla Otani (San Francisco) with her original braille art book, Political Action Group on democratic women in congress and democratic women running for congress – copies available at the gallery have all sold out but you can still order them through Amazon!
Rozanne Hermelyn Di Silvestro (Sunnyvale, California) with her monotype, oil, paper and string on panel piece, Bound and her mixed media installation, In a Constant State of Rising and Falling.
Winnie van der Rijn (San Carlos, California) with her photographic image transfer and embroidery on muslin pieces, One Size Fits All.
When it came time for me to speak about my painting, In the Pink, I shared how I believed that the Pussy Hat (originally co-created by Krista Suh) became such an immediate, global, viral icon of the Woman’s March because it employed such a feminine voice. It took knitting, a traditionally feminine craft, one that we do with our hands, and our hearts, in our homes or together in groups, using soft, warm, pretty and fuzzy fibers and often give as gifts to one another to wear with pride (a bit of kitty humor) saying in our sea of pink that, “We see you Pussy Grabber in Chief and we do not approve, we will not forget, and we will stand together and march for our rights.” Even the metaphor of knitting one stitch, connected to another, and another, collectively making something bigger than ourselves, is so perfect!
Rinat Goren (Woodside, California) with her beeswax, pigment and paper paintings, Finding Points of Agreement 1 and Finding Points of Agreement 2.
Irene Carvahla (Santa Cruz, California) with her acrylic, mixed media and image transfer, Ambient Thoughts.
Irene Carvajal (Belmont, California) with her screen print on paper, fan and plexiglass tank kinetic sculpture, Future Gains: the dollar is rising. She is selling individual bills to help fund her trip to the border to offer her language services to those families who are seeking asylum at the border and are too often being separated and denied their legal rights.
Chandrika Marla (Mountain View, California) with her acrylic on canvas painting, For Our Lives.
Karen Gutfreund standing with Jenny Reinhardt‘s mixed media on canvas painting, Split the Sack, shared the dismall figures, of the percentage that women artists earn in comparison to their male counterparts, as well as how poorly they are represented in museum shows and what an incredible value their work actually is! Sales continue a pace at Whitney Modern and RISE has been extended to September 9th, 2018 to be included with ForFreedoms a 50 state activist art initiative!
Shannon Edwards from TWW/Indivisible Los Gatos thanking the Whitney Modern and the artists for the evening. Together We Will as a grassroots civil engagement movement that helps to lobby for progressive initiatives, supports candidates and sponsors local events was the perfect audience for RISE! It’s so great to join together like this!
Artist, Winnie van der Rijn and author and speaker, Nilofer Merchant.
RISE! Pano Power
In my continuing documentation of RISE: Empower, Change and Action!, the Gutfreund Cornett Art exhibition at Whitney Modern, I’d like to explore the power of the pano and it’s potential to give the illusion of being in the gallery and experiencing the flow of the work….
RISE! Reception!
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Wow! This Show!
The Gutfrend Cornett Art exhibition, RISE! Empower, Change and Action Reception and Artist Talk and Walk at Whitney Modern in Los Gatos, California last Saturday was completely uplifting and inspiring with artists as far away as New York sharing the moving inspiration and fascinating stories behind their work.The exhibition is intended to create a dialogue between artist and community together over important issues feminist issues of out time. Click on artists names for links to their websites where available.
The girl blowing bubbles on the cover of the exhibition catalogue came to life welcoming quests to the reception.
Three of the four fabulous curators, Suzanne Whitney-Smedt, (Gallerist of Whitney Modern) Marianne McGrath (Independant Curator), Karen Gutfreund (Activist Curator at Gutfreund Cornett Art and Arist) that pulled together this fabulous exhibition, standing in front of Vanessa Filley‘s (Evanston, Illinois) archival pigment print on cotton rag paper pieces, #Me Too, Minerva Looking, #Me Too, Assata Toward, #Me Too, Gabriela, The Futrure and bedside Indira Cesarine‘s (New York, New York) neon piece, Equal Means Equal. The fourth fabulous curator, Sherri Cornett (Activist Curator at Gutfreund Cornett Art and Artist), was unable to make the reception, and was greatly missed!
Karen Gutfreund, engaging the audience, earlier she had read Maya Angelous’s poem, Still I Rise, in honor of Ceciley Blanchard (Jackson Tennessee) who had based her photographic series, (included in the catalogue) on this poem and was unable to make the reception where she had hoped to recite the poem herself.
Gathering to view the work of Carolyn Doucette (Tiburon, California) and Sarupa Sidaarth (Tiburon, California)
Love how the In a Constant State of Rising and Falling installation floats in the “atrium” between Whitney Modern above and Gallery 24 below.
Artist Walk and Talk around the gallery where each artist would speak briefly about their contribution to the show.
Me with my oil on panel painting, In the Pink.
Dana Richardson (Scotts Valley, California) with her oil paintings Burning Woman and Millennial Woman.
Irene Carvajal (Belmont, California) with her screen print on paper, fan and plexiglass tank kinetic sculpture, Future Gains: the dollar is rising. She is selling individual bills to help fund her trip to the border to offer her language services to those families who are seeking asylum at the border and are too often being separated and denied their legal rights.
Maeve Grogan (Bend, Oregon) with her Mixed Media and Flashe acrylic painting, Noise & Space Game.
Mague Calanche (San Francisco, California) with her acrylic, oil and wax on wood painting, Todas Trabajamos, Hasta Las Ninas.
Rozanne Hermelyn Di Silvestro (Sunnyvale, California) with her monotype, oil, paper and string on panel piece, Bound.
Penny McElroy (Redlands, California) with her graphite, colored pencil, digital composite, encaustic, metal thread with LED piece, sweet fragrant spring.
Jenny Reinhardt (Summit, New Jersey) with her mixed media on canvas painting Split the Sack and Karen Gutfruend.
Amy Pleasant (Mill Creek, Washington) with her acrylic painitngs, Something Worth Waiting For and On Her Shoulders.
Chandrika Marla (Mountain Vew, California) with her acrylic on canvas painting, For Our Lives.
Rinat Goren (Woodside, California) with her beeswax, pigment and paper paintings, Finding Points of Agreement 1 and Finding Points of Agreement 2.
Winnie van der Rijn (San Carlos, California) with her photographic image transfer and embroidery on muslin pieces, One Size Fits All.
Karuna Gutowski (Santa Cruz, California) with her acrylic, mixed media and image transfer, Ambient Thoughts.
Paula Bullwinkel (Bend Oregon) with her oil on canvas painting, So The Darkness Shall Be The Light And The Stillness The Dancing.
Sally Edelstein (South Huntington, New York) with a print of her monumental collage, Women’s Lib-A Storms Approaching.
Roberta Aherns (Petaluma, California) with her plaster embedded fiber and acrylic painting on box frame painting, Sepia Dahlia.
Sondra Schwetman (Arcata, California) with her silk, pigmented sewing pins and steel sculpture, Witness. This piece was a Special Award Winner by guest juror, Joan McLoughlin of Mcloughlin Gallery in San Francisco!
Brian Rothstein (Vallejo, California) with his oil painting on canvas, Be Gentle 1.
On the far left of this photo is the monitor displaying even more amazing work that is included in the catalogue but for which gallery space would not accommodate. On the right is Marisa Govin‘s (Talent, Oregon) watercolor on paper painting, Ñust’as.
Pages from Gloria Matuszewski ( Novato, California) mixed media, Altered Book, Gray’s Anatomy.
Gina Herrera‘s (Bakersfield, California) assorted found materials sculpture, Jaunting for Restitution.
Rozanne Hermelyn Di Silvestro (Sunnyvale, California) upstaged by her clear umbrellas, fishing line, silkscreen or laser cut plexi installation, In a Constant State of Rising and Falling.
Viewing Nayda Cuevas (Arlington Massachusetts), oil and panel paintings #latina:Reclaimingthelatinatag.
Anitra Frasier (Dolton, Illinois) was a Special Award Winner chosen by guest juror Jessica Porter (Arts Bussiness Strategest, New York, New York) for her oil on wood painitng, I Think It’s Going To Rain Today, on the left. On the right is Kelsey McDonnell’s (Buffalo, Wyoming) acrylic on canvas painting, Learning to be a Phenomenal Woman, #6 Balancing Time and Energy who was also chosen as a Special Award Winner by guest juror, David Weinberg, (Executive Director of Weinberg Newton Gallery, Chicago Illinois) for her acrylic on canvas painting, No Turning Back.
Sally Edelstein speaking on her work.
Maeve Grogan describing the meaning behind her work. A glimpse of Beth Lakamp’s (Fenton Missouri) watercolor on clayboard panel, that’s the idea and she told them so.
And my favorite photo from the reception, my muse for my oil painting, Feathers hanging with my favorite bubble girl!
A distant peek at Sarupa Sidaarth‘s (Tiburon, California) acrylic, googly eyes, eyelets on canvas painting, Shh.
The League of Women Voters, a non partisan group, had volunteers available at the gallery to register people to vote. Make your voice heard and Vote! 46.9% of those eligible did not vote in 2016 and look where that got us! in the background you can catch a glimpse of Blond Jenny‘s ( Edison New Jersey) c-print, Womanhood, Lindsey Carrell‘s ( Billings, Montana) oil and egg tempera on panel painting, Translate, and Shelly Floyd‘s (Round Rock, Texas) acrylic on paper painting, Struggle to Rise.
Earth, Wind & Fire at Kaleid
Bay Area artists Dotti Cichon and Jamila Rufaro have a joint exhibition, Earth Wind & Fire at Kaleid this month in downtown San Jose, California. The show focuses on the use of natural and weathered materials, rworn and rusted materials, silk papers and metalics. I was so happy to attend the Aritsts’ Reception which coincided with Kaleid’s fabulous Two-Buck Tuesdays!
Artist Dotti Cichon at Kaleid, 88 S 4th Street, San Jose, California.
Reception
Dotti Cichon’s silk panels have beautiful abstracted patterns printed from her manipulated digital photographs of global architecture. They can be worn as scarves as well (I’m a proud owner of one not depicted here).
In this gold leafed panel Dotti Cichon strikes an elegant balance between the organic, “worm-holed” treatment and the sumptuous gold finish.
This copper-leafed textile is another beautiful metallic treatment of an organic feeling surface.
Here is a detail of silver leafed papers, some with remnants of calligraphy from the silver kimono assemblage below.
Silver kimono assemblage.
Kimono Angel assemblage by Jamila Rufaro and Dotti Cichon.
Book art by Jamila Rufaro is inspired by imaginary sea life and Cortez. I have one of here pieces from this series that was exhibited at Sanchez 50/50 2017!
I love the forms that Jamila Rufaro has created manipulating book pages!
Such a Fascinating interactive sculpture with video depicting the origins of the cosmos by Dotti Cichon.
RISE! – Going Up!
Spent the day with Suzanne Whitney-Smedt, Karen Gutfreund, Marianne McGrath and Rozanne Hermelyn Di Silvestro, because it’s more fun to unload a U-Haul together!
Many hands make for light work!
Unwrapping Jenny Reinhardt‘s huge painting Split the Sack.
Looking good together! Jenny Reinhardt‘s Split the Sack and Gina Herrera‘s sculpture, Jaunting for Restitution.
Rozanne Hermelyn Di Silvestro installing her installation, In a Constant State of Rising and Falling.
The installation can seen from Gallery 24 down below as well.
Laying out the pieces of the puzzle, Nayda Cuevas paintings #latina:Reclaimingthelatinatag.
RISE! – Incoming!
I brought in my painting, In the Pink, to Whitney Modern on Friday, for the upcoming Gutfreund Cornett Art show RISE: Empower, Change and Action! and was delighted to find the exhibition catalogues hot of the press! It tells us about Gutfreund Cornett Art with its vision of “Changing the World Through Art” and Whitney Modern a much needed Contemporary Fine Art Gallery in the heart of the Silicon Valley, the curators of the show, Gutfreund Cornett Art, Marianne McGrath and Suzanne Whitney-Smedt, the guest jurors: Jessica Porter, Kelsey McDonnel and Joan McLoughlin (and all the special award winners) and documents all of the art in the show with artists comments about their pieces. There are also two important essays on the importance of social activist art and engaging with community by Sherri Cornett and Karen Gutfreund.
Gallerist, Suzanne Whitney-Smedt and Curator / Artist, Karen Gutfreund, (curators for the exhibition along with Sherri Cornett and Marianne McGrath), graciously modeling the new catalogue for me. Catalogues are available at Whitney Modern while supplies last or through Amazon.
165 pages of gorgeous images and inspiring content!
See?
Santa Cruz artist, Karuna Gutowski was bringing in her Ambient Thoughts painting just as I was leaving. It’s in the bottom right corner, just below Scotts Valley artist, Dana Richardson‘s painting Burning Woman. Can’t wait to see the rest!
The exhibition runs July 18 – August 31 with an opening reception and artist talk Saturday July 21 12:30 – 3:30pm. 24N Santa Cruz Ave, Los Gatos, California.