Fur Feathers and Fins Reception

Fur, Feathers & Fins is currently showing at the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto, California, where I have three of my Birds & Teacup paintings. Juried by DeWitt Cheng, curator, critic and teacher, this exhibition explores a variety of approaches to depicting animals and our relationships to them from the purely representation evocations of them in their natural habitat to the utilitarian, metaphorical, symbolic, playful and even removed.  I can’t help but think about this subject matter in terms of the Anthropocene, how do we look at animals now that most of their worlds are impacted if not threatened by ours. Is the new wild, one of suburban back yards, zoos and laboratories? Something I think about anyway – Elizabeth Kolbert’s, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History is a great book on this subject! This show wraps up March 30, here are a few pictures from the opening reception, with links to artist’s websites, if available, when you click on their names.

Devan John, Gallery Manager of PAL announcing the awards.

First place went to Janey Fritsche for her oil on cradled panel,  Sea Shepherds.

Second Place was awarded to Ellen Kramer for her photograph Discarded.

Third Place was given to Maura Carta‘s oil on panel, Nose-less Bunny.

Honorable Mention for Ann Sismore’s photograph God’s Got Your Back.

A second Honorable Mention for Bob Carlin‘s digital print under resin,  Blue Footed Boobie .

A third Honorable Mention was awarded to Beka Brayer for her one of her Waiting for Wings mixed media assemblage pieces, details shown here.

Me with three of my Birds & Teacup paintings, Tea II, Petunia Tea I and Anemone Tea I.

Kathy Kleinsteiber and her acrylic portraits of animals.

May Shei – Joyful Moment – Watercolor on Rice Paper

(detail)

Judy Kramer, Insect Photography – Fur Feathers and Fins

Linda Maki – Fish on Lahina Wharf – Oil on Canvas

Leah (Jay) Jakusovszky – Amphibian Illustrations

Oleg Lobykin‘s Sea Foam sculpture and a crow painting by Janey Fritsche.

Detail from Peter Koronakos‘s assemblage Penguin.

Jihoon Choi with his painted steel Pink Rhino and Yellow Giraffe.

I was delighted to become familiar with Jihoon Choi and his fantastic work!

To hear the Artist Talk he gave click on this link for the video I shot: Jihoon Choi – Artist Talk

Jihoon Choi photographs of his scupltures in Bay Area locations.

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