Author Archives: mariecameron

Iwasawa Oriental Art

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Have you been to Iwasawa Oriental Art yet? It’s a lovely gallery of fine Japanese art, furniture and design serving a very discerning clientele and celebrating their 35th anniversary this year! It’s located at 75 University Avenue in Los Gatos, California.



Kumikio Iwasawa Vadas, the gracious owner, exhibits work that reflects the changing seasons and is currently showing Water in Life an exhibit that runs until February 28th, 2018. How perfectly this parallels the current Waterlines exhibition at NUMU (where my pieces Stilla Maris and California Water Rites are currently showing) for which she is one of several generous sponsors! She is standing in front of a beautiful work of calligraphy by Kihachiro Nishiura – Sound of Water – Sumi Ink of Canvas. This skilled artist teaches calligraphy lessons at the gallery!

On display in front of the calligraphy are these amazing stone vessels by Ken Matsumoto, the one at the bottom is called Spillway Wash from 2015.

Ken Matsumoto  – Grant Lake RipRap – Unidentified Stone – 2016

A painting from Masamichi Kotaki’s series, Neither a Point or a Line, work that echoes the gestural sweeps of calligraphy in Sumi Ink, mineral pigment and gold on hemp paper from 2006.

This beautiful Urushi or lacquerware green tea container is part of several vignettes of Toriawase in the gallery, the poetic art of arrangement, which is highly evolved throughout Japanese culture and maybe nowhere more so than in the Japanese tea ceremony in which the host can covey more than can be expressed in words with artful, thoughtful arrangements. The Chrysanthemum of autumn, depicted in gold is a symbol of longevity and follows the idea of Shitsurae, the practice of arranging decor to reflect the season or occasion. This piece is an example of Utsushi, where craftsmen look to employ and improve upon traditional imagery and methods, not to copy but to participate in an artistic dialogue that spans centuries.

Not only did I want to share this wonderful gallery with you but also share the exciting news that Kumiko Iwasawa Vadas has invited me to exhibit my triptych, Blooming Deadwood, here in the spring!  We discussed it with a few friends over some lovely plum wine, cheese and crackers after my artist talk at Fade where the painting in currently on exhibit at Vargas Gallery. I am so honored to think of my work adding to the conversation of art and nature that envelops you when you enter this very special space!

Fade – Artist Talk

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I was delighted to give an impromptu Artist Talk at Fade (my solo show at Vargas Gallery at Mission College) prompted by my friend artist Lorraine Lawson who kindly rounded up a great group which included people with backgrounds in galleries, marketing and art.  It is a special thing when artists come out to support other artists!

I loved sharing the stories behind these paintings, how I choose both medium and technique to help tell the tale and the symbolism I try to employ.

Telling the story behind Blooming Deadwood.

So nice to see artists Veronica Gross, Dotti Cichon, Lorraine Lawson and Linda Benenati! We are enjoying the suggestion that I get a scissor lift for my paintings like Hung Liu uses!

Sometimes you can better see what’s in your heart with your eyes closed.

Talking about employing chiaroscuro (light /dark) in both the lighting of the figure but also more figuratively in the lightness of the feathers and the darkness of the Bacchanal in the folding screen.

Talking about combining different experiences to create an image, the albino deer of Pine Mountain Lake, the dormant forest at Picchetti, a nest of branches at Kirkwood, the fawns that visit my backyard and the antler drops I have in my studio.

With gallerist Kumiko Iwasawa, Lorraine Lawson and designer Robin Sedgewick.

Kumiko Iwasawa in front of Blooming Deadwood – we spoke of exhibiting at her gorgeous gallery, Iwasawa Oriental Art, in the spring!

Triton Salon 2017 – Artists & Art

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The Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, California held their huge reception on Sunday for their annual Salon, a statewide 2D art competition and exhibition (November 11, 2017 – February 04, 2018). Juried this year by Cherri Lakey and Brian Eder, co-owners of Anno Domini Gallery in San Jose, there was just too much exceptional work to cover in a single post so I thought I would just feature some of the artists that I managed to catch with their work and put together another post later on. Congratulations to everyone on being selected for this great show! I’ve tried to link artist’s websites to their name which you can click on if you are interested in seeing more of their work.

Gabriel Coke    Hannah and Scarlett in the Studio with Me    Oil on Linen ( Honorable Mention)

Lorraine Lawson    Orient Express     mixed media on canvas

Maura Carta   Sri    oil on wood

Dotti Cichon    Ancient Memories of Metamorphosis    copper leaf, patina on found fabric

Kaaren Marquez    Shuttered but Not Forgotten    watercolor

David Stonesifer    Saratoga Orchard    oil on canvas panel

Mei-Ying Dell’Aquila    Liberty Prometheus Inception   oil on canvas

Jenifer J. Renzel     Moon Gods    mixed media acrylic

Hadi Aghaee     The Lingering Somber Thoughts    oil, mixed media

Deepali Kapatkar    Story of the Warriors     pastel on paper

Avery Palmer    The Outing    oil on masonite

Diane Warner-Wang    English Breakfast    oil on canvas panel

Beichen Li     Outside Light    acrylic on canvas

Carol Ramos    Just Joey    watercolor on paper

Fade Reception Date

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Yay!

Director Lynne Todaro and I settled on a date for my Fade reception at Vargas Gallery, Wednesday, December 6 from 4-7 pm. Perfect timing for students, between classes and between holidays. I’m delighted to hear that the show, which began Nov 8, has been getting a great response and I am looking forward to entertaining visitors at the reception! I hope you can join me if you are in the area!!!

These are some of the “artist with her work” shots taken at the exhibit to come up with a show promotion…

Such a lovely space! Vargas Gallery is located in the Gillmor Center in the middle of the Mission College Campus. Gallery hours are Monday  & Wednesday 11 am – 2 pm and Thursday 3:30 -6:30 pm.

 

Installing Fade my Solo Show at Vargas Gallery

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I was so delighted to throw together a last minute solo show for Vargas Gallery at Mission College! I’m calling it Fade – it’s a collection of my Fade to White work, exploring albinism and leucism in our flora and fauna, laced with larger pieces I’ve done over the years that touch on themes of vulnerability and tenacity, beauty and mystery.

The show will run November 9 – December 14 (Reception TBA) Thanks to Director Lynne Todaro for the opportunity and to Ashley at the gallery for her help setting up!

Waterlines Artist Talk at NUMU Tomorrow

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Please join me for a conversation with curator Marianne McGrath at NUMU tomorrow, Saturday, November 4th. We will be talking about the genesis of my pieces Stilla Maris (drop of the sea) and California Water Rites, currently on exhibit with Waterlines. We will explore my artistic process, my relationship with water and notions of what might be considered sacred. Come and ask me stuff! Share your experience of water and what it means to you!

Here are some panoramic view of the exhibit which includes  (painting, photography, assemblage, installation, video, drawing prints and sound pieces)  by Judith Belzer, Barbara Boissevain, Marie Cameron, Matthew Chase-Daniel, Christel Dillbohner, Linda Gass, Nancy Genn, Liz Hickok, Theodora Varnay Jones, Pantea Karimi, Cheryl E. Leonard, Danae Mattes, Marsha McDonald, Klea McKenna, Ryan M. Reynolds and Linda Simmel, curated by Marianne McGrath.

Several artists exhibiting with Waterlines will speaking about their work in conjunction with NUMU’s Winter Celebration which will run from 12- 4 pm. Check out this link for all the activities (including decorating sugar skulls)!  This is free for all NUMU members, $10 general admission, $6 for seniors, students and military and free for everyone 18 and under.

NUMU is at 106 E. Main Street in Los Gatos, California.

How much is that Doggie in the Window?

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“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where the dogs went.” – Will Rogers.

A pack of pooches were juried into the display in the front window of Gallery 24 for the month of November. Paintings are by Julia Watson, Kay Duffy, myself, Sandi Okita and Kevin Kasik.

Here’s a close up of my painting, Retriever in the Orchard, a 12″ x 12” oil on panel. I met this beautiful chocolate lab bounding through the historic apricot orchard in Saratoga  between rain showers and piano lessons one spring.

Waterlines Preview Party

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Waterlines opened up last night at NUMU with a fabulous, packed preview party for members!  I am so honored to be part of this extremely beautiful show curated by Marianne McGrath with such outstanding artists working in a multiplicity of media and bringing distinct perspectives and sensitive visions and voices speaking to our experience of water. Exhibiting artists include: Judith Belzer, Barbara Boissevain, Marie Cameron, Matthew Chase-Daniel, Christel Dillbohner, Linda Gass, Nancy Genn, Liz Hickok, Theodora Varnay Jones, Pantea Karimi, Cheryl E. Leonard, Danae Mattes, Marsha McDonald, Klea McKenna, Ryan M. Reynolds and Linda Simmel, I have added links to all of their websites which can be accessed by clicking on their names below.

Always a pertinent topic, and especially so in California, NUMU was able to enjoy the support of sponsors such as Badger Meter and San Jose Water Company and Kumiko Iwasawa, Iwasawa Oriental for Waterlines.

Executive Director Lisa Coscino and Curator Marianne McGrath, talking about the genesis of the show and introducing sound artist Cheryl E. Leonard who played transporting music with objects from the sea and layers of recorded sounds from waves and melting glaciers.

Here are some of her instruments, mussel shells, stones, dried kelp flute, stinger driftwood and shell rattles  and sand.

Music by Cheryl E. Leonard,  Video by Oona Stern.

I love how the various pieces in Waterlines seem to be in conversation with one another.

With my assemblage painting with found objects and Pacific Ocean water, Stilla Maris which is Latin for Drop of the Sea and is thought to be the precursor to Stella Maris.

With California Water Rites, my assemblage with Los Gatos tap water.

California Water Rites and Poem

Theodora Varnay Jones – Poem

Christel Dillbohner with Frozen in Time – oil, cold wax on linen and Motionless Torrents – oil on silver leaf.

With Danae Mattes and her Evaporation Pool.

Site Specific Evaporation Pool by Danae Mattes.

Exhibiting artists Danae Mattes and Liz Hickok with Holly Van Hart.

Liz Hickok‘s photographs (sublimation print on aluminum) Lithosphere and Signal to Noise.

Pantea Karimi speaking about her silkscreen, Mapping a Gulf: The Persian Gulf Map and Tour of The Persian Gulf Album with Lorraine Lawson.

Judith Belzer‘s paintings.

Linda Gass with her sumptuous painted silk textile pieces, Owens River Diversion and San Joaquin Merced Revival.

Marsha McDonald – Slough, one of many GIF videos of water.

Barbara A. Boissevain aerial photographs of Bay Area salt ponds.

Barbara A. Boisssevain – Salt Pond Restoration Photo Grid

Matthew Chase-Daniel – Swamp South of Crescent City – photo assemblage.

Nancy Genn‘s Patagonia series casein paintings on canvas.

Linda Simmel photopolymer intaglio etchings, 75kts and 60kts.

Linda Simmel – Book of Seas – gesso/pencil on gampi paper, steel binding.

Ryan Reynolds – Frogshead and Petaluma River – oil on panel.

Klea McKenna Rainstorms & Rain Studies

Klea McKenna

Waterlines runs from October 6 – March 18.  November 4th several Waterline artists will be present to talk about their work (including me) in conjunction with NUMU’s Winter Celebration. I hope you get a chance to see the exhibit in person because my photographs are not capturing the beauty of the work!

On Exhibit with Waterlines

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I am so very honored to asked to participate in Waterlines, a gorgeous and relevant exhibition at NUMU curated by Marianne McGrath which includes some amazing work from 16 artists, bay area and beyond each coming to water with a different viewpoint and voice!  The show runs from October 6  – March 18 with a member’s Preview Party tonight and an artist walk through November 4, as part of NUMU’s Winter Celebration.

The two pieces I have in the show, Stilla Maris (Drop of the Sea) and California Water Rites both focus on the notion that all water is holy and we need revaluate our cavalier relationship to it.

Stilla Maris – assemblage painting with found objects and Pacific Ocean water – 2016

 

California Water Rites – Assemblage with tap water – 2016

Sanchez 50|50 Opening Tonight!

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Woohoo – the 9th annual Sanchez Art Center’s 50I50 show is tonight! It’s so exciting to see all this work of 50 paintings in 50 days culminate in this one fantastic night where 60 Bay Area artists, all juried in by gallerist, Jack Fischer, display 3200 pieces of 6″ x 6″ art which get plucked off the wall and taken to new homes!  The preview (from 6-8 pm) is completely sold out and the free public reception (from 8-9:30 pm) is sure to be packed!

 

Here are some snaps from last weekend when I installed Fade to White at the Sanchez Art Center, located at 1220-B Linda Mar Blvd in Pacifica, California. It was the very beginning of a three day install, and the work I did get to see was so good and the rest I’ve been avidly following online…I hope I get a chance to shop too!

 

We were encouraged to offer pre-sales and I’m delighted to share that a full 20% of my Fade to White series, of oil and encaustic paintings exploring albinism and leucism in our Flora and Fauna has been pre-sold!

 

If you’d like to find me tonight, my work is in the West Wing, at the end of the hall with the piano, I hope the pianist takes requests! And if you’re not able to make it tonight, the Sanchez Art Center will be open Friday, Saturday and Sundays through to October 1st with any remaining work.

Heather Wilcoxon’s At Sea – ICA

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Black/ White – oil on paper mounted canvas

At Sea is a stunning exhibition of Heather Wilcoxon‘s boat paintings at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art in until September 10, 2017. These powerful images of the skeletal structures of boats seem to be seem to be dematerializing as you gaze at them, transcending their former life and hover in a transitional, almost spiritual state.

In her artist statement Heather Wilcoxon says in part,”I felt that the boat form could be explored on many levels: the metaphor of decay, my dealings with cancer……the physical beauty that surrounds me is ever changing – the tide comes in, the tide goes out.

As a Maritimer in love with old rotting boats and the history they carry, I can say I was thoroughly moved by this work!

Hot Water – oil on paper mounted canvas (Freedom & Divided)

Blue Water – oil on canvas  (Storm & Wet)

Storm – oil on canvas

Protest – oil on canvas

Remains at Sea – oil on canvas

Worms – oil on canvas

Calm – Oil on Vellum

Blue Water – oil on canvas

 

Fade to White – Artist Statement

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I’ve been fooling around with some square business cards for Sanchez 50 I 50, you know the kind with a new image on each one…this will be the back with my contact info and painting care instructions.

I often live in my head about what I’m doing, and it was pointed out that by an artist friend (thank you Andy Ballantyne) that I should share the meaning behind my Fade to White series since they are more than purely decorative.

Here’s the Artist Statement I’ve prepared for the show:

It’s so magical to see a ghostly white apparition in the forrest!
I was overwhelmed the first time I saw an albino deer years ago at Pine Mountain Lake in Groveland and thrilled to witness a leucistic hummingbird at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum a year ago! I am intrigued by the increasingly frequent reports of albinism and leucism in our native flora and fauna.

Very rare in the wild, these white creatures stand out from their surroundings making it hard for them to be a predator and harder still to be prey. These genetic conditions carry other risks as well, including sensitivity to sunlight with a higher risk of skin cancer and weakened feathers in birds. Finding mates can also be more challenging. Plants without the chlorophyl fail to thrive and need to be associated with a green parent plant to grow. Interestingly, the case of albino redwoods, there is evidence that the albino shoots are actually processing toxins in the soil.

With the expansion of human development, real wild spaces are shrinking and becoming disconnected, creating isolated gene pools which heighten the opportunities for recessive albinism and leucism to express where it might not in a more diverse gene pool. Animals like deer, squirrels and raccoons that can live close to humans benefit from increased predator protection and entire communities of leucistic and albino populations are popping up. Of course there are more people and cameras on the look out for these unique and beautiful creatures.

In this series I have laid an encaustic veil over the oil painitng of flora and fauna, at times inscribing lines of pigment, colors which has been lost. I see this veil as one that we are unintentionally drawing over our wildlife.

Detritus – ICA

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Just some of the fabulous detritus artists leave in the wake of their art making on exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in San Jose through to September! There is something very special about this show, it speaks to the labor, the hours and the dedication to the artistic process!  Have you looked around your studio for the art you didn’t realize you were making?

Ricardo Richey

 

Pablo Cristi
Kelly Turnstall
Michael Hall
Evan Bissell
Carlo Abruzzese

Robin Kandel

Tiffanie Turner

Lauren Di Cioccio

Tiffanie Turner or Sandra Ono?

Adam Shriverdecker

Dana Hemenway

Chris Dorosz

Chris Dorosz

 

The Day I Saw That Night in Toronto

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The one show I had to see while in Toronto…That Night in Toronto!

Curated by The Jealous Curator (AKA Danielle Krysa), this exhibition of 10 Canadian artists pays tribute to the poetry / lyrics of the Tragically Hip with 20% of sales to be donated to the Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research! As Daniella Krysa notes, “This show is a heartfelt tribute from one group of Canadians to another – and simply our way of saying, “Hey man, Thanks”. The show at Mayberry Fine Art was slated to run July 1 − 31  but I believe may have been extended…

I have been a big fan of The Jealous Curator’s blog and podcast, Art for Your Ear so I was pretty thrilled to hear that this show she was curating my actually concide with a family vacation in the vicinity. I was stoked to see her playful mixed media collage in person and see a show curated with her fresh and distinctive eye! I didn’t get a shot of everything in this fascinating show but a pretty good representation, where possible I have included lots of links to the artists websites.

Danielle Krysa – Tired as fuck I want to stop so much I almost don’t want to stop – found image and gouache – 2017 (detail)

Danielle Krysa – Culled and wooed, bitten, chewed, It won’t hurt you if you don’t move – found image and gouache – 2017

Sara Genn -We get to feel small – oil on canvas – 2017

Ben Skinner – If Only We Had Nothing To Say – mixed media – 2017

Annyen Lam – In my head the game goes quiet  – lithograph, monoprint, handout paper – 2017

Don Proch – The Gord Landscape with Passing Comet and Jean Jacket Collar – mixed media – 2017

Sean William Randall – I Thought of Leaving it Behind – acrylic – 2017

Meghan Hildebrand – After a glimpse over the top – acrylic on canvas – 2017

Sarah Gee Miller  – What Blue – acrylic and styrene on panel – 2017

Jay Dart – Lookin’ Fer A Place t’Happen – graphite and watercolor on paper – 2017

Joe Fafard – Doves of War – laser cut steel and powder coating – 2017

Ben Skinner – All Of My Heroes Are Women – mixed media – 2017

(with reflection)

My daughter who was tagging along also loved the show…now I need to introduce her to the band!

Mayberry Fine Art is a lovely gallery, just across the street from the Art Gallery of Ontario, where it turns out we even had time to take in the Georgia O’Keefe exhibit and at least 4 of the group of 7!!!

For more on the show here is a link to a video of the show and a CBC Radio review on John Power’s Q.

Oh yes, and here’s the song, That Night in Toronto by The Tragically Hip!