Waterlines Preview Party

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!

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

Connect & Collect – Going, Going, Gone!

The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Artis holding it’s 36th annual art exhibition and auction, Connect & Collect! Last weekend was the opening reception, silent bidding and buy it now options have begun and will build into a crescendo by October 22 . For more details and to get your bidding number visit: http://sjica.org

Jody Alexander’s linen wrapped and sewn book piece was already purchased!

Cynthia Ona Innis’s Tioga

Kirk Maxson’s Hummingbird Wings

Katja Leibnath and Katy Kindig‘s paintings had already sold!

Two pieces I adored by Pantea Karimi and Kim Froshin.

Dotti Cichon and Katy Kindig

Charlotte Kruk’s  Bomb Shell!

Detail from Michael Koehle’s Young Hillary

Monica Van den Dool’s– ceramic bird

Hung Liu and Eric Fischl!

Lorrie Fredette’s Distant Measures

Mary Souza with her Tuming 1



Carolynn Haydu’s
Sand

Jenifer Kent’s  Tum

So great that all these artists have donated work to help the ICA keep giving back to the arts community!

50 and Looking Forward

To celebrate turning 50 the Triton Museum of Art organized a forward looking exhibition of emerging and mid-career artists that will play an important role in the art scene into the future. I was able to meet with a number of the artists at the opening reception last Friday and while this post is by no means comprehensive, I hope it will give readers a taste for more of the exciting work in 50 and Looking Forward which runs until July 12, 2015. Click on the names of the artists for links to their websites.

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Demetris Washington - photo Marie Cameron 2015

Mind of Gold is a dynamic, bold and colorful painting by Demetris “BAMR” Washington, his tag standing for Becoming A Man Righteously. I wish I’d asked him to tell me about his imagery it’s really intriguing!

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Shannon Amindon- photo Marie Cameron 2015

Shannon Amindon  and her lovely, layered, mixed media encaustic silhouettes.

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Shannon Amindon - Stirred by the Wind - photo Marie Cameron 2015

Stirred by the Wind by Shannon Amindon.

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Julie Hughes - Spore(kle) - photo Marie Cameron 2015

Spore(kle) (detail) installation by Julia Hughes  – acrylic on mylar, paper, wax, glue, thread.

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Jaya King, The Chicken That Saved the Day and honey : hand model  -  photo Marie Cameron 2015

Jaya King,  her mixed media gouache, The Chicken that Saved the Day and her honey / hand model reenacting the scene.

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Jojo Perea -The Beautiful Teacher- photo Marie Cameron 2015

The Beautiful Teacher by Jojo Perea painted on recycled cardboard, there was a magnifying glass on hand to catch the fine details.

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Pantea Karimi - photo Marie Cameron 2015

Pantea Karimi turns to early Persian texts and scientific illustrations for longue durée clues to today’s environment. She meticulously recreates styles of alphabets to employ in her work, these marks at times resembling birds or waves or bookends. Subtle, smart and intriguing!

50 and Looking Forward - Pantea Karimi - Water, Earth Air, Wood -  photo Marie Cameron 2015

Water, Earth, Air, Wood by Pantea Karimi.

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Cuong Nguyen and model - photo Marie Cameron 2015

Exceptional portraitist, Cuong Nguyen and his beautifully bearded model.

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Miguel Machuca - Unlocking through Fear- photo Marie Cameron 2015

Unlocking Through Fear by Miguel Machuca.

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Vanessa Callanta - photo Marie Cameron 2015

Vanessa Callanta and her personality filled portraits.

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Viviana Paredes - photo Marie Cameron 2015

Viviana Paredes works with glass and natural materials in her sculptures that explore a cultural tradition of the natural and the sacred in an changing world.

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Viviana Paredes corn cache detail - photo Marie Cameron 2015             50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Viviana Paredes - Talismu - photo Marie Cameron 2015           50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Viviana Paredes - Heirloom Corn Cache  - photo Marie Cameron 2015

Heirloom corn kernels in glass flasks (details from wall installation)  and Talismu by Viviana Paredes.

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Patrick Hofmeister and painting - photo Marie Cameron 2015

Patrick WäDL Hofmeister paints intricate, highly symbolic and often autobigraphical worlds .

50 and Looking Forward - Triton - Stephanie Metz sculptures- photo Marie Cameron 2015

Flesh and Bone  felted wool sculptures by Stephanie Metz.