Midsummer Art Celebration

Jaya King is the Midsummer Celebration or at least her spirit is the embodiment of it – or maybe I just really like her and her work (I’ll just say it’s her art that adorns the postcard this fundraising event for the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara)! Part of what I really enjoyed is how she owned her space, how she brought in pieces that reflected her whimsical, colorful and layered work.  Like her pale pink and white striped painting trolley,  a vintage mint green display trunk and animal themed linens and sculptures. This world of inspiration helps to give the viewer a context for her work, the only thing it was missing was a goat nibbling at her art and some birds flitting about, maybe a shaggy miniature pony eating birthday cake and some chickens and geese going after tail feathers underfoot. But it was all there – in the art.

It wasn’t just her environment that reflected her work but the way that Jaya presented herself in her hand painted and ribboned corset, her layered and painted tutu (with train) and playful accessories that really helped to blur the line between artist and art!

It’s really appealing when business cards are presented in a unique and inviting fashion that says something about the spirit of the work! Jaya’s flying pig is a perfect solution.

It was fascinating to watch Jaya as she demonstrated her process of layering washes of acrylic over swatches of patterned paper she had fixed to the canvas that she uses as a base for her animal paintings. The animals themselves are both from her real life and from her very active and rich imagination. Jaya even has Facebook page devoted to animals, Farms, Feathers & Four Legged Friends. Each painting has a fun story behind it which Jaya ids more than happy to share.

I had met Jaya at a Silicon Valley Open Studio event in the spring of 2009 and was so impressed with her use of color and pattern and text, her often off-center, closely cropped images and her sensitive and playful portrayal of animals. I fell in love with two of her paintings of Cockatoos that day, I Spy and Napoleon – reluctantly and regrettably, I decided that I couldn’t buy other people’s art until I had my new studio built. These funny little bargains we make with ourselves. So while I missed out on those two mixed media treasures I’ve followed Jaya’s work and have been so impressed her talent and versatility!

She had an impressive solo show at Nieto Fine Art in San Fancisco where she exhibited a very different vein of her work, evocative portraits and landscapes richly textured and layered with an exquisite handling of color and materials. I loved them! I covet them!!

Here she is posing for me with Lisa Tries to Help the adorable mixed media collage painting of a goat “helping” with gift wrap.

I couldn’t resist one last photo of Jaya and her fabulous hand painted corset before she wrapped up that sweet painting for me to take home! Come along Lisa.