Circle of Truth – Debut!



Jim Morphesis

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?



Alison Van Pelt

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.

Vonn Sumner



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.

Doro Hofmann



Paul Ruscha
followed with some angled text of his own with “dead ducks falling”, perhaps inspired by flight in the previous work.



Paul Ruscha

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.

Dan Lutzick

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.

Todd Williamson

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

John Scane

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.

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.

Blooming Deadwood at Iwasawa Oriental Art

I am very honored to be exhibiting Blooming Deadwood at Kumiko Iwasawa Vadas’ gorgeous gallery, Iwasawa Oriental Art in downtown Los Gatos where Every objet d’art is carefully selected for not only it’s craftsmanship but how it artfully reflects the season and relates to its neighbor! Thanks to Lorraine Lawson, David and Kumiko for your help with the install!

Unveiling.

Measuring.

Placement.

Hanging.

Leveling.

Happy artist and gallerist.

You can take the girl out of the valley, but you can’t take the valley out of the girl! I grew up in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia with it’s orchards flanked by basalt mountains and now I find myself in the Santa Clara Valley, formerly known as Valley of Hearts Delight, famous for its orchards and now more commonly referred to as Silicon Valley. I adore how my painting, Blooming Deadwood, has been paired with Ken Matsumoto’s stunning Floating Usu, carved out of basalt!

I love the relationship pieces have with each other at Iwasawa Oriental Art, especially this Meiji period vase and bird with Blooming Deadwood as a backdrop, can you feel spring coming? I am told their will be cherry blossoms in a few weeks!

Galaxy by Hiroko Ohno, pigment and acrylic on paper mounted on wood panel.

Giclée of Tokyo Waterfall by Hiroko Ohno.

Also, Iwasawa Oriental Art will be conducting their first calligraphy class of 2018 with Kihachiro Nishiura January, 11th e-mail iwasawaart@comcast.net or contact them at (408) 395-2339 to reserve a spot.

Iwasawa Oriental Art

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!

Waterlines Artist Talk at NUMU Tomorrow

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.

Abstracts From Life at NUMU

So nice to meet many of the exhibiting artists in Abstracts From Life: Bay Area Figurative Past and Present at the Members Reception held at NUMU last night in Los Gatos, California. It’s a beautiful exhibit curated by Marianne McGrath with exceptional work by Michael Azgour, Joan Brown, Suhas Bhujbal, Linda Christensen, Richard Diebenkorn, Dennis Hare, Mitchell Johnson, Brigitte McReynolds, Nathan Oliveira, Joan Savo, Jennifer Pochinski, William Rushton, Terry St. John and James Weeks. The show continues on until September 10, 2017. The following are a few photos from the evening and a small sampling of the work which glowed dramatically off of the dark walls (so hard to shoot)! All the more reason to come in and see it for yourself! For additional information on the artists, click on their names for links to websites and bios.

Suhas Bhujbal – Flower Market – oil on canvas

Mitchell Johnson

Brigitte McReynolds

Jennifer Pochinski – The Wonderful Race, –  Penelope, Livingroom

(detail from The Wonderful Race)

Linda Christensen – Tableau – oil on canvas

Linda Christensen -The Writer – oil on canvas

William Rushton – Street Play – oil on canvas

(detail)

Michael Azgour – Canal Street – oil on canvas

Joan Savo – Untitled (figure)  – oil on canvas

Richard Diebenkorn  – Untitled – charcoal on paper

Richard Diebenkorn – Untitled – charcoal on paper

Nathan Oliveira – Untitled Figure.  Crown Point Press Nude 14 – watercolor on paper

James Weeks – Promenade Under the Trees – oil on canvas

 

La Estancia

I had the chance to paint with the Los Gatos Art Association’s Plein Air Group a few weeks ago at La Estancia in Los Gatos. I’m afraid I don’t get out with them more than once or twice a year but I always love it when I do manage to break away from the studio. They are such a great group of talented artists who generously share tips and ideas. It’s so invigorating being out “in the field” trying to throw it all down before the light changes or soup’s on!

Vincent Liu

Liz Fennell

Wheelbarrow full of arts supplies!

Veronica Gross

My painting in progress – the tree was in silhouette when I began.

My  11X14″ oil – trying to keep it colorful, wild and loose!

Nancy Takaichi’s palm painting.

Lisha Wang

Kathy Carlquist

Al Shamble

Rebecca White’s oil.

Gathering after lunch for the critique.

So many paintings in only few hours!

Sam Pearson’s pastel.

Will Maller leading the critique and discussion.

Will Maller’s palm.

Jennifer Lashbrook Demo at JCO’s

The Art Docents of Los Gatos were treated to a demo by Dallas artist, Jennifer Lashbrook and her “Swatch Paintings” at JCO’s Place on Friday. Lashbrook creates collages using paint swatches that she gets by the forklift load and through an extensive process of sorting by value and hue builds a palette for her pixelated images, squares of color fixed with rubber cement and clear acrylic onto gridded panels. This series at JCO’s were all famous, recognizable images from art history and part of the fun is the process of recognition, but she also does landscapes and portraits which can be seen on her website .

Owner of Jco’s, Julie Jenkins greeting the Docents.

Jennifer Lashbrook walked us through her exacting  process.

Girl with a Pearl Earring  (Vermeer)  – 36 x 36 – paint swatch (paper)

Paint swatch sample names can be playful, and witty and very literal, the pearl earring is actually “pearl”.

Frida with begonias – 48 x 35 – paint swatch (paper)

Quickly scanning a Frieda, I find “Adobe Straw”.

Marilyn (Andy Warhol)  – 36 x 36 – paint swatch (paper) detail, I wonder what her swatches say?

Julie Jenkins atop a ladder catching the Docents on their phones… Up close these pixelated collages dissolve into a grid of colored squares, the analytical brain clicks in, categorizing the material and reading the chips. The more distance you can create between yourself and the piece, the more the image resolves before your eyes.  Your spatial, arty brain clicks in and starts seeing the big picture, “connecting the dots” and filling in the blanks. The same effect can be achieved by squinting or looking through your smart phone. Super fun!

Quinn Peck – Artist Talk

Aside

Tuesday, the Art Docents of Los Gatos were treated to an Artist Talk with Quinn Peck!

Julie Jenkins (owner of JCO’s and fellow board director for the Art Docents of Los Gatos) opened up her ArtHaus for the first time to introduce us to the dreamy and ethereal photo based work of Oakland based artist, Quinn Peck.

Elizabeth Greer, co-chair of the Continuing Education committee welcoming us to the talk, introducing us to Quinn Peck and recounting how his Liminality Series had stood out at Anne & Mark’s Art Party this past fall, on EVERYONE’s top favorites list.

Julie Jenkins describing her reaction to Quinn Peck’s work when she first saw it at Anne & Mark’s Art Party last fall, how the pieces would move as you rounded the corner, lifted on the breeze of the motion of the viewer’s passing and draw you back in, how moving they are and how happy she is to represent his work now here in Los Gatos.

JCO’s gallery director, Bridget McMahon welcoming Quinn Peck.

Liminality: Self-reflection from the space in-between, is a series of archival inject prints on layers of silk. The top layer is a transparent silk organza and the base a heavy Fuji silk, the layers are hung loosely from a bar allowing for space and between the layers. As you move past the piece, viewing it from different angles the images shift slightly, almost like a stereograph or a hologram. The effect is like a dream or a shifting memory, something unstable, unfixed. In fact, Peck was inspired by Civil War era spirit photography which used double exposures to “capture spirits”. Liminality itself refers to thresholds.….(from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete …(thank you wikipedia).

These deeply introspective pieces invite viewers to identify with the subject who is either facing a void or a gate, a passage, a path or a plunge. All of this is emotionally engaging with rich with and powerful metaphors, but what is even more profound is that these pieces were all self portraits from before Peck began his transition from female to male! I am so deeply touched by how many levels this work is operating on, all in it’s quiet and sublimely beautiful way!

Jumping Off Place

Edge

Broken Steps

Tunnel

A native of Cambria, Quinn Peck holds an undergraduate degree in Visual Art (emphasis in photography) from University of California, Santa Cruz, a Masters in Photography from the Academy of Art University, and a MA in Counseling Psychology, Expressive Arts Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies and is currently  working on his certification in Permaculture Design at Merritt College.

To see all of the work Quinn Peck has at JCO’s check out all the gorgeous images on their website. I love them all but Edge is coming home with me!

Holiday Party – Gallery 24

Gallery lighting is for paintings – not people & cameras only work when the batteries are charged!

That aside, here are the few photos I have from Gallery 24’s Holiday Party last night which was great (before my battery went dead)! I got to meet so many lovely people including some of the artists who have recently become members! Also two go my hummingbirds had flown off the tree to new homes before I even got to the party!

I love belonging to gallery with such engaged artists and sponsors, (Los Gatos Morning Rotary Charitable Foundation) and such a supportive community!

Me with my birds….

Holiday Tree  trimmed with small treasures.

Micheal Rogan’s floral.

Shannon Amidon with her encaustic painting of a silhouetted tree and hawk ….

That’s better …Occhiolism.

And then my battery went dead and I could actually talk to people!

 

 

 

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)

Magnolia Tea II Alighting at Gallery 24

I just listed Magnolia Tea II on the website and will be bringing it into Gallery 25 with a flock of other Birds and Teacups. In this painting, I tried to bring home some of the magic of spotting a white hummingbird in the wild to capture it in a domestic still life with this unusual, unpainted Limoges demitasse set and Magnolia Grandiflora bloom which represents nobility and perseverance in the Victorian language of flowers.