Sanchez 50|50 Opening Tonight!

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.

womanKind Reception

The womanKIND reception was a warm-hearted gathering on a very cold night at the Citadel Gallery in San Jose. The exhibition, a Cole / Drews Watkins project was held in support of the YWCA Silcon Valley – eliminating racism, empowering women! Last day to see the show is Monday, December 19th from 12 to 6 pm.

Power houses Susan Drews Watkins and Sara Cole who put together the show welcoming us all to the exhibition.

Tanis Crosby, CEO of the YWCA Silicon Valley speaking eloquently about the importance of being there for each other as women, as community. Very inspirational!

                             

We were touched by the powerful spoken word poetry of Diana D’Angelo, Sara Cole and Ashlie Andrade.  Check back soon, I’ll be posting video links to these readings!

Many of the exhibiting artists were present, here I am with my floral paintings.

Jhina Alvarado with her Mixed media encaustics.

Diana D’Angelo and her mixed media paintings.

Ashlie Andrade with Sara Cole’s paintings on paper.

Sara Cole with her self portraits.

Susan Drews Watkins and friends.

Susan Drews Watkins sculpture, metal, water and glass.

Joy Redick and her watercolors.

Lisa Renée Falk and her Citrus Dress – glass, silk and plastic citrus bags.

Lisa Renée Falk and her Citrus Dress, glass, silk and plastic citrus bags.

Trace Galbraith and her slumped glass work.

My Birds and Teacups cards.

Tableart by Henri Mansfield Herns.

Work by Tableart, Gutfreund, Cole, Cameron

       

        

Marti Somers Squirrel over Tumbleweed, Mixed media on panel.

Karen Gutefreund‘s Perpetual Motion,  mixed media on canvas. Karen had been to the show early in the afternoon before racing off to Arc in San Francisco for the opening of the F*ck U! exhibition reception!

Brigitte Carnochan‘s  Pot of Daffodils , silver gelatin print.

Jhina Alvarado’s Alberts, mixed media encaustic paintings.

Jamie Woods, YWCA Silicon Valley’s Associate Director of Philanthropy and Sara Cole.

It was an honor to meet Tanis Crosby and help to support the YWCA Silicon Valley for all that they do – eliminating racism and empowering women! I hope we’re able to raise lot’s of money with this show for the important work that they do in our community!

womanKIND Reception Tonight!

The womanKIND reception is tonight  from 6-9 pm at the Citadel Gallery, 199 Martha Street in San Jose in support of the YWCA Silicon Valley – eliminating racism, empowering women!

There will be an address by Tanis Crosby, CEO of the YWCA Silicon Valley and spoken word poetry at 8 pm! This is a free, fundraising event and a chance to see lots of great painting, photography, sculpture, glass,  jewelry (and cards). There will be a raffle of works donated by organizers, Sara Cole and Susan Drews Watkins and maybe you’ll end up falling in love and taking and something special home with you!

Here is a sneak peek from last night, photos compliments of Sara Cole:

For more on the artists exhibiting tonight: please check out this link: http://www.saravcoleart.com/cdwprojects

 

Birds and Teacup Cards!

Was there a particular Birds and Teacups painting you’d like to have as a card?

Let me know if you’re interested as I’m putting through an order in the next few days… I’ll be donating  $1 per card to the YWCA Silicon Valley as part of the womanKIND exhibition, a Coles / Drews Watkins project running December 16-19 at The Citadel Gallery, 199 Martha street in San Jose. I will have a selection of cards available for purchase at the reception, Saturday, December 17 from 6-9 pm and will reserve cards or mail them out upon request.

These are folded cards, printed on premium paper stock with a matte finish and an accompanying envelope in a cellophane sleeve. 5″x 5″ cards are $5 and the 5″x7″cards are $6.

The titles are up on my website, check older entries to find them all:http://mariecameronstudio.com/category/portfolio/fauna/

womanKIND

I’m so honored to be taking part in womanKIND, an upcoming exhibition uniting women, creativity and community by Cole / Drews Watkins Projects, in support of the YWCA Silicon Valley – eliminating racism, empowering women!

womanKIND will be held at the Citadel Gallery & Studios, 199 Martha Street, San Jose, California and will be open to the public December 16-19. Tanis Crosby, CEO of YWCA Silicon Valley, will open the reception to be (December 17, 6-9 pm) and there will be a spoken word performance at 8 pm!

Friday December 16th 4pm to 8pm

Saturday December 17th 11 to 3pm, 6pm to 9pm (reception)

Sunday December 18th 12pm to 8pm

Monday December 19th 12pm to 6pm

For more information about the womanKIND exhibition and all the great artists involved, please check out the following link: www.saravcoleart.com/cdwproject I’ll be showing a number of my Birds and Teacups paintings (and selling cards as well).

By the way, I’m seriously in love with that dog by Jhina Alvarado!

Holiday Tree Trimmed with Paintings

The Holiday Party is tonight!

It is the tradition at Gallery 24 (formerly Los Gatos Museum Gallery) to trim the tree with little paintings, small treasures all $100 each, this year I have two of my 4×4″ hummingbird paintings at the tipity top – can you spot the white hummingbird? It’s a bit like seeing it out in the wild!

 

 

 

I know that David Stonesifer will have some of his very popular Vintage Santa paintings on the tree as well!

I’m still trying to decide whether to wear my hummingbird dress or something more sparkly?  Throw something fun on and come down for  a drink and a bite, some art and lots and lots of fabulous company!  Party runs from 6-8:30 tonight, 24 N Santa Cruz Avenue in downtown Los Gatos, California!

Holiday Party at Gallery 24!

 

Our Holiday Party at Gallery 24 is tomorrow night from 6-8:30 pm!

Everyone is welcome to stop by for a cup of good cheer and festive nibbles! We have a tree covered with tiny paintings and you can see the work of the following artists, many who will be present!

Shannon Amidon
Debbie Baker
Andy Ballantyne
Marie Cameron
Noreen Christopher
Gary Coleman
Nancy DeWeese
Vernon Dittenbir
Chris Dok
Marilyn Dorsa
Joan Drennan
Danielle Dufayet
Lance Glasser
Georgesse Gomez
Scot Grabowski
Veronica Gross
Mary Ann Henderson
Ellen Howard
Yao-pi Hsu
Phyllis Ann Jenkins
KevinKasik
Ellen Kieffer
Katy Kindig
Carolyn Larsen
Lorraine Lawson
Belinda Lima
Vincent Liu
Ed Lucey
Will Maller
Betty Turrentine McGuire
Maralyn Miller
Susan Miller
Linda Mitchell
Sandi Okita
Donna Orme
Sam Pearson
Judith Peterson
Leslie Rock
Michael Rogan
Julia Munger Seelos
Pat Sherwood
Linda Smythe
Lucas Stamos
David Stonesifer
Pat Suggs
Jeanne Tillman
Janet Trenchard
Karen Van Galder
Julia Watson
Alice Weil
Colleen Wilcox
Tonya Zenin

We’re at 24 N Santa Cruz Avenue in downtown Los Gatos, California.

(artwork by Janet Trenchard)

Anne & Mark’s Art Party Closing Bash

OK – it’s been over a week now and I really should have had this post up long ago but I’ve been suffering from an art hangover like you wouldn’t believe (unless of course, you were at the party)!

In fact, this is what the inside of my brain looks like now – a cacophony of pattern, lights and color like this giant kaleidoscope by Ned Greene!

Or this detail from Emanuela Harris-Sintamarian’s gouache Die Gesteze der Stukturen!

And here are the synapses of my grey matter firing in pops of dreamy florasl and dandelion puffs of exploding fractals seen here in Carrie Lederer’s Clear Night!

The computer of my mind is overloaded and is threatening to crash (detail from Karen Gutfruend’s CTRT ALT DEL)!

And my dreams are haunted by a blind white rabbit, thank you Tulio Flores and Asiel Design….so here we go – one more trip down the rabbit hole before I move on!

First of all I’d like to thank everyone who made it out to see my Florilegia and shared with me their response to the work – this input is simply invaluable to an artist  and means do much!  Thank you , thank you , thank you!

And then there were the visitors who seemed like they were exertions of my paintings!

So Fabulous!

And then there were my art crushes…..like this discarded cigarette packaging piece by Robert Larson.  He was able to take something dirty and disgusting and transform it into something sublime!  I smelled it too  – not a hint of nicotine or anything else. Pure alcmemy!

I also adored this woman’s torso fashioned from safety pins, Lacey by Bob Marzewski, like little stars or snowflakes tenuously welded together.

Lorraine Lawson’s missed media paintings,  Bob Marzeweski’s torsos and Tessie Barrera-Scharaga’s Matrix of Chaos, an installation piece of multiple images of the Virgin and kneeling benches.

So easy to get lost wandering through the maze of galleries – at least if you’re doing it right.

Kristin Lindseth’s prints.

Gianfranco Paolozzi’s Journal, enamel, robber paint, glue on recycled role of paper.

Will Marino’s Paradigm Shift , wound and folded paper

Patrick Hofmeister’s Aware.

Malia Landis’s IIiima in Kiawe.

Marianne Lettieri’s Memory Bank.

Lynn Dao’s Domestic Apocalypse

Love the simplicity of this delicate bowl  against a simple grey background in this oil painting by Deborah Trilling.

John Hylton’s Moon Watcher, canvas, paint wood.

Monica Van den Dool’s Behold in front of Emanuela Harris-Sintamarian’s gouache  Die Gesteze der Stukturen.

Wesley T. Wright – California Coyote – Stoneware, underglaze, glaze, concrete, steel in front of Nanette Wylde’s monoprints.

It was such a delight to meet Natalia Bertotti and Michael Garlington who collaborate on intensely dark, curious and magical images that somehow tap into some cultural core of ours – Grimm’s American fairytale crossed with something ripped out of the headlines of an old newspaper – or rather the stories that was never fit to print or maybe a precursor to a circus side show. They photographed Susan Sarandon in amazing paper dresses here’s a link to this process.

          

Love the flask action!

I’m not even sure what I’m looking at here, but it feels like a pierced and leaking Padora’s Box emptying out into a sea of melting glaciers – a big old barrel of global warming by Briget Henry with Ann Altstatt. Feel free to go with another interpretation!

Grant Wells’s  Ocean Structure 1, pigment transfer on canvas.

Tim Craighead’s oil and alkyd on linen, Without Constantini.

Adon Vaneziano’s sculptures.

Brian Taylor’s  Changing Nature, photography.

Dotti Cichon with her installation she collaborated on with Jamila Rufaro.

Pantea Karimi and her paper vovelles.

With Lorraine Lawson and her mixed media paintings.

Sara Cole’s Forgotten Women 2 , acrylic, graphite, gesso on paper.

Oleg Lobykin’s bronze Flex Cube.

Ann Sconberg’s  photography,Thirteen One and Two.

Quinn Peck’s archival ink jet print on fabric.

Betsy Braun-Kernaghan and her mixed media work.

Michelle Longosz photographs.

A detail from Jenifer Renzel’s The Contraption.

Vanessa Callanta’s self portrait.

Marc D’Estout’s A Briefcase of Puppetry  (detail)  found objects, fabricated steel, paint, patina.

Joe Uglyeye – Personal Demons – spray paint, screenpaint, acrylic on birch panel.

Denise Harris-Olenak’s Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin, photographic plates on copper and wood.

Beyond the visual art, the big draw go the Closing Bash was the fabulous runway put on by Pivot:  The Art of Fashion!  The lights the crowds, the fantastic music and and even more fantastic fashion! Above are Charlotte Kruk’s  Bossa Nova Bombshells made from recycled Ferrara Pan Chewy Lemonhead & Friends, Lemonhead, CherryHead, Grapehead wrappers!

And her Godiva coat!

                         

Tullio Flores

Lace design work.

                          

Tulio Flores

                          

                         

IB Bayo

                          

Rose Sellery (left) Charlotte Kruk’s Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, recycled Tiffany bags and chandelier pieces (middle) Katraa (right)

Rose Sellery

MC Kim Luke thanking Pivot Oraganizers Tina Brown, Rose Sellery and designers, Charlotte Kruk, Tulio Flores, Katraa, Sudnya Shroff, Ruby Roxanne, Ricochet, IB Bayo and Many others…

Food truck fun.

Rose Sellery’s designs and sculpture

D’Arcy Couture models in front of Khaled Akil’s Requiem for Syria.

D’Arcy Couture.

Model Izzabelly Santos in IB Bayo.

Pivot MC, Kim Luke in front of

Sunya Shroff’s designs and painting and models in a moment of pre-composure

Pivot models in front of art.

Jessica Hilltout’s phtographs of handmade balls.

Pillar Aguero-Esparza’s multicultural Crayolas on paper.

Pivot model in front of Miguel Machuca’s Orchestrated Religion.

Butterfly model wafting by Teresa Cuniff’s There and Back

Glowing butterfly floating by Alan Silver’s oils on canvas.

Finally alighting on chair sculpture.

The morning after….picking up my work there are still a few remnants from the Art Party – Bill Gould’s sculpture tinkling overhead and the fabulous murals painted with Empire 7 glowing in the early morning sun. Farewell Wonderland, you will haunt my dreams until the next occasional and irrational art fest! Thanks to all involved with Anne and Mark’s Art Party – you’re the best!

Update – I’m delighted to hear that Anne Sconberg and Mark Henderson have just been presented with the Creative Impact Award for their extraordinary vision and hard work with Anne & Mark’s Art Party!  So well deserved!

In case you’re still game for more and missed previous Art Party posts, here are the links:

Tower of Bauble

Angels Among Us

Down the Rabbit Hole

Anne & Mark’s Art Party 2014

In Conversation – La Niña and Social Justice

In conjunction with the opening of Social Justice: It Happens to One It Happens to All on at Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art (September 18 – December 1, 2016), Gutfreund Cornett Art arranged for the exhibiting artists to come and speak, In Conversation! 19 of the 46 artists were able to come, some traveling as far away as San Diego, LA. Utah, Mexico and New Zealand! We were all share it there was a single event that had tipped the scale for us, why were were creating the socially engaged work we exhibiting. In this photo above, taken by Sherri Cornett, we are all nervously waiting to begin, the quiet before the sharing. I was struck by how heart-felt and deeply human and absolutely inspiring all the artist’s stories were! I thought I would share with you here what I shared with the crowd last Sunday about my piece.

The image for my painting, La Niña, came to me in a flash and it haunted me, calling me to paint it. I had been following the coverage of the tide of unaccompanied minors from Central America flooding across the border between the United States and Mexico and I was driven to try and understand the circumstances in their homelands that must be so horrible as to drive them to make this dangerous journey alone. What I found was an environment of rampant gang violence, gangs like Mara 13 and 18 that began in LA and were deported to El Salvador where they had flourished, fueled by poverty and civil unrest. So pervasive and endemic was this culture of the Maras, many minors felt they had no choice but to flee from forced recruitment and rape. There was this one photograph I came across that made such an impression on me, it was of a young woman with a giant 18 tattooed across her face which she had received in punishment for refusing to execute a gang murder, it was a family portrait with her baby and her husband, who was the gang’s tattoo artist . She seemed so sad and worried – branded in this very obvious way, an admonishment, a possession, a target. The photo was taken by Christian Poveda, a Hispanic-French photo-journalist and filmmaker of La Vida Loca who was later killed by the gang for his work. In this photograph, I saw the impossibility of the situation where your very skin is indelibly marked with violence. I imagined  the image of an innocent baby floating buddha-like in a sea of tattoos, those of one gang etched on to her body, and those of the rival gang floating around her. In searching for a more universal statement, these very specific gang symbols later morphed into more generalized symbols for danger and entrenchment that are marking the lives of our children.

La Niña – Oil on canvas

Here I am interpreting symbols I had morphed in this photograph by Ann Dubois at the reception.

Social Justice in Moraga

Long time no see – but just because it was summer vacation and I was far to busy for blogging, doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot happening behind the scenes that I’d love to share and I’m going to see if I can catch up! As usual, the post is loaded with easy links to click on where text is bold.

Yesterday, for instance, I took in my painting, La Niña to Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art in Moraga, California for Social Justice: It Happens to One It Happens to All, an exhibition curated by Gutfreund Cornett Art.  I’m standing in front of the exhibition banner featuring one of my favorite pieces from the show, Xian Mei Qiu’s  The Bird Cage (I can’t wait to see the original photograph on plexiglass in person!) The show opens Sunday, September 18 with a 1:15 pm  Artist Talk at the Soda Activity Center and runs through to December 18.

The art in the exhibition is extremely moving and powerful (as can be seen in their online catalogue), juried from artists across the country and beyond!

The exhibition catalogue can also be ordered through Amazon (I’m on pages 34 & 35).

Saint Mary’s College mission styled campus is stunningly beautiful, its white stuccoed architecture gleaming through its green and flowering landscape, nestled into the golden hillside east of Oakland – a gorgeous setting to look at some of the darker themes we need to pay attention to in our world.

This the the Soda Activity Center (up behind the church) where I’m told the Artist Talk will be held. There is free public parking directly in front of this entrance and the Museum is just across the way where a reception will be held in the pretty courtyard. I hope you’ll consider making the trip to experience the work first hand and to hear the artists tell their sure to be fascinating stories!

 

Los Gatos Plein Air Art Show and Sale

The Los Gatos Morning Rotary Club hosts the the annual Los Gatos Plein Air Art Show and Sale. Artists from all over the US are juried into this week long event where artists paint throughout the area, producing an amazing oeuvre of fresh work to be auctioned and sold at the end – the results are always impressive!Here a few shots I manage to capture from today’s sale at the Town Plaza (artists websites are linked to their names).

Greg LaRock (Newport Beach, CA) – Best of Show

Suzy Long – ( Mendocino, CA) The Copper Bucket – People’s Choice Award

Susan Elwart Hall  (Atherton, CA) – Artist’s Choice Award

Susan Elwart Hall – Pink Buzz – Oil – Honorable Mention

John Guernsey (Marietta, GA) – Courtyard at the winery -Oil -Second Place

Waye McKenzie (Truckee, CA)

Wayne McKenzie – Mountain View – Oil – Third Place

Wayne McKenzie – Friendly Rivalry – Oil

Wayne McKenzie – Santa Cruz Surfers – Oil

Anton Pavlevnko (Mollala, OR)

Anton Pavlevnko – Trickling Creek – Oil – Honorable Mention

Terri Ford (San Jose, CA)

Terri Ford – Valley Vista – Pastel – Honorable Mention (with a bit of reflection)

Kevin Kasik (San Jose, CA)

Kevin Kasik – Shannon Road (detail) – Oil

Me and Kevin hanging…

David Stonesifer (Los Gatos, CA)

David Stonesifer – Foot of Shannon Road – Oil

Ed Lucey (Los Gatos, CA)

Will Maller ( Los Altos, CA)

Sergio Lopez (Santa Rosa, CA)

Sergio Lopez – Capitola Rooftops-  Gouache

Barbara Clark (Corrales, NM)

Barbara Clark – painting detail – oil

Sterling Hoffmann (Sebastopol, CA)

Abby Zhang (Los Gatos, CA)

Laura Wambgans (Santa Clarita, CA)

Art Docent Volunteers, Julia and Judith

Art lovers

Artist Lorraine Lawson volunteering with the Morning Rotary.

Along St. Joseph’s Trail

I clearly don’t know all the correct names of these creatures and blooms I came across on my hike along St Joseph’s Trail – but I’d like to! If you know the real names please chime in!

Bay Area Checkerspot

Skipper on a yellow Devil’s Paintbrush

Bermuda Buttercups / Soursop

Seep Monkey Flower / Common Monkey Flower / Mimulus guttatus

Sticky Monkey Flower / Orange Bush Monkey Flower / Mimulus aurantiacus

Scotch Broom

 

Yellow Flower

California India Pink

Ladybug

Tadpole

                        

California Poppy, ?. White Lupine

Flowering Shrub

Railroad

White Flowers

White Morning Glory

White Iris

Wild clematis gone to seed

White Lupine

Fairy Lantern / Globe Lily/ Calochortus alba

Nightshade

Clover

Vetch

?

?

Thistle

?

Smallflower Lupine / Lupinus polycarpus  (micranthus)

Blackheaded Grosbeak

?

Purple Finches

 

While Hunting for a Bunting

Rumor has it there’s been a rare sighting of a Painted Bunting at nearby Ulistac Nature Area Restoration (way out of it’s natural range) and I went to see if I could get luck this morning. This is was I found while out hunting for a bunting…

Maybe next time! This is a wonderful park though, full of birds and butterflies because of the wetlands and native plants – it smells heavenly, sages in the hot sun!

Spring Robins

Spring arrived on the mantle of a thousand beating wings. More reliable that a calendar, the migrating robins descended on my berry tree and stripped it bare in a single day (with the help of a few cedar waxwings).

When my models show up, unannounced or not, I have to set everything else down and pick up the camera because blurry or sharp, these photographs will make excellent reference material for my paintings when the birds are long gone!

Robin in the Dormant Plum - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Flight 1 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Orange Berries 4 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Orange Berries 2 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Orange Berries 1 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Orange Berries 5 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Flight 2 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Red Berries 1 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Red Berries 13 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Red Berries 2 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Red Berries 4 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Red Berries 3 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Red Berries 11 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Red Berries 8 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Red Berries 9 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Red Berries 7 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Red Berries 6 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin in Red Berries 5 - Marie Cameron 2016

Robin with Cedar Waxwing - Marie Cameron 2016

More on the cedar waxwings next….

 

Capitola Rocks

LGAA Plein Air - Capitola - Capitola on the Rocks (WIP) getting there…Marie Cameron 2016


Before

This is how my little 8 x 8 inch plein air painting turned out after I took it back to the studio and messed with it a little…. perhaps there’s a little too much of a warm cast in the lighting but I think I’ve traded some of the freshness of color and application of the earlier stage for  a stability and structure of the final version.

Capitola Rocks - oil on board - 8x8 inches - Marie Cameron 2016

After

 

It’s still a cute painting but that’s the whole thing about plein air –  to learn how to let the immediacy and imperfections of the moment fill the canvas with life and don’t try to beat it to death with notions of what it should look like…… It’s a lesson I have to learn over and over again.