I’m fortunate to be a member of a group of 11 artists who share the second floor of the Wool Warehouse at the Willamette Heritage Center. We call our space: Studios at the Mill. We have been together in various forms (in various studios) for the past four years. My space is always evolving depending on my latest project. What remains the same for now is this is my Special Projects Studio, where I house all of my ephemera, vintage books, and oodles of photographs.
Initially, we hosted Open Studios on a monthly basis, but after a few years, that got to be too much, so for the past couple of years we host Art After Dark Open Studios quarterly. Last night was our July event. On the second Thursday of our chosen month, we all fling open the doors to our studio, serve wine, sparkling water, and lots of food – savory and sweet. Our studio member Jim Hockenhull often has his wife, Jo, join him in providing us with music and last night they played and people danced. We also asked Steve, who owns a new restaurant at the Willamette Heritage Center, Krewe du Soul, if he would serve samples of his Cajun fare. He agreed and for two hours offered samples of jambalaya and gumbo; there were lots of people walking the halls with smiles on their faces. To best share our event, here are photos I took of people throughout the evening.
For our next Art After Dark Open Studios, we’re mixing it up a bit and it will be held a month later on: Thursday, November 8, 2018.
Once a quarter, on the second Thursday of the month, Studios at the Mill host Art After Dark where we fling open our doors, serve refreshments, and celebrate the arts in our neck of the woods.
We are located on the second floor of the Wool Warehouse at the Willamette Heritage Center, which is across the street from both the Amtrak station and Willamette University, in the heart of Salem. We have 10 artists and everyone opened their door on the evening of April 12th. My studio is located in the NW corner, overlooking the Mill Stream, which runs through the WHC campus. Here’s one of my windows looking up from the outside.
I use my studio at the Mill for special projects since my painting studio is at my home. I love having a space devoted to working with paper, ephemera, book covers, black and white photos, and scraps . . . . all of which I call Salvage Collage.
Of course, I spruced up my space for this quarterly event. It is ever evolving and I love moving things around, touching everything, hanging things, and getting side tracked auditioning various pieces for ongoing projects. Here are photos of my spiffed up studio:
It is always more fun when people are added to the mix.
Our next Art After Dark is Thursday, July 12, 6-8 pm. If you’d like to be added to our studio newsletter e-mailing list, please send me your e-mail address: dayna@alleyartstudio.com
Once a quarter, The Art Studios at Mission Mill, host Art After Dark/Open Studios. Our most recent event was January 11th. I was the featured artist in the studio gallery/classroom and I decided in addition to hanging some of my recent work, I would offer a mini workshop on creating a modified What’s Your Story mixed media collage. I set up some of the walls in the gallery as teaching walls. One wall told the history of the project, another showed samples of possible backgrounds, and then one wall showed the progression from blank 140 lb. watercolor paper to finished mixed media collages. (The other two walls were my most recent work using old, defaced books, but I’ll share those pieces in a separate post.)
I created three small sample collages, done using original letters, envelopes, and an assortment of ephemera, along with photocopies of black and white photographs.
With my guidance, guests were invited to create a little mixed media collage.
All ages participated, and Alex sat and read old letters to us during the evening.
Of course, sometimes the adults found it difficult to resist reading the letters.
Some of the collages created during the evening event.
All of this was a great set up and preparation for last weekend, when I taught the first of my two-day full length What’s Your Story, Real of Imagined workshop. I’ll be doing a post about my workshops in the coming days.
Who doesn’t love little art? I sure do. The Art Studios at Mission Mill recently had the opportunity to host Mary Lou Zeek’s wonderful refurbished cigarette machine, which she transformed into a vending machine of small art blocks (the size of a pack of cigarettes). The machine, ART BLOX: Small Art for Everyone, used to be in Mary Lou’s wonderful downtown gallery space, but since the gallery closed, the machine makes appearances only on special occasions or by invitation. We invited and the machine was delivered last Thursday.
Alan Zeek delivers the ART BLOX machine.
Mary Lou showed me the quirks of the vintage machine.
Mary Lou and Dayna with the ART BLOX machine outside the studio of Max Marbles.
Last Thursday night was our quarterly Art After Dark and Open Studios. The upstairs studios were open, refreshments were served, and art was displayed throughout the space. But downstairs was the ART BLOX machine, which was hoppin’ throughout the evening, where we sold the small blocks of art for $10 each.
Dayna Collins sold ART BLOX tokens throughout the evening.
Lois Stark waves her hands at the machine in the hopes of getting the perfect block.
Roger Hull randomly pulled a lever and the machine dispensed an original piece of art by Bonnie Hull.
A happy guest received a Bonnie Hull original.
Choosing a lever to pull.
A happy guest.
This little girl hugged the machine because she said she “loves it.”
An original art block created by Nancy Eng.
Katy Vigland who created blocks for the machine, stops by to purchase blocks.
One of our younger art lovers.
James O’Shea photographs the process of purchasing an ART BLOX.
Cheryl Creel goes in for a second block.
Dennis Creel gets into the ART BLOX stance.
So many levers to choose from.
A sampling of the blocks we received:
Blocks by Mona Cook.
Blocks by Katy Vigland.
Blocks by Nancy Eng.
Blocks by Elizabeth Bauman.
Blocks by Tory Brokenshire.
Blocks by Susan Napack.
Blocks by Dayna Collins.
A big thank you to Mary Lou and Alan Zeek for the use of the machine and for the many artists who created and contributed blocks. The proceeds from the sale of the blocks, almonst $800 worth, will be going to an artist relief fund in Salem.
The artists at the Art Studios at Mission Mill decided at the end of last year that they wanted to host quarterly Open Studios rather than monthly events. I personally liked having them monthly, but they did seem to roll around rather quickly. Our quarterly event, under the umbrella of Art After Dark, will be held this Thursday, April 13, from 6-8 pm (a change from our old time of 5-7 pm). Studio A, where I hang out, has been converted to my Special Project Studio, where I am working on a big mixed media and collage project titled: What’s Your Story, Real or Imagined: Telling Stories through Black and White Photos. I started this project last year, but it has been evolving and morphing into something bigger than I earlier anticipated. I still have my two walls of black and white photos, which have expanded and taken over more real estate.
I recently had the opportunity to sort through a couple dozen boxes and three chests of family photos and ephemera and somehow I managed to find room in my compact corner space for piles and mounds of paper, 3-D bits, and photos.
I’ll be doing an Artist in Residence at the Salem Art Association Annex in the fall, so for now, my ideas are percolating as I spend time in this special studio. I’ll be sharing more about my fall project a bit later, but it includes a panel discussion, two weeks of working in a spacious light-filled studio, and will culminate in a one-day workshop I’ll be teaching. In the meantime, come see my newest acquisitions and hear more about my project on Thursday night.
ART AFTER DARK
The Art Studios at Mission Mill are located at the Willamette Heritage Center, across from Willamette University on 12th Street and across from the Amtrak Train Station on Mill Street. All of the second floor studios will be open, Carol Green will be demonstrating a Polaroid emulsion lift process (“The World Through Polaroid Imagining”), and Bonnie Hull is bringing her instant camera and will be taking curated photos ($1, please bring exact change). There will be new art on the communal walls and all of the artists will be serving refreshments. On the first floor, Max Marbles, the bookbinder, will be open, the Eco Hub is featuring student artwork honoring nature, and you can meet the newest tenants: award-winning photographer Frank Barnett and his wife, 3D artist and writer, Mart Soloman. It’s going to be a splendid night!
Our December Art After Dark was cancelled last month due to snow and ice, so I’m happy to announce that it has been rescheduled for Thursday, January 12, 2017, 5-7 pm. The artists at the Art Studios at Mission Mill voted to go to quarterly Open Studios, so please join us as our next event won’t be for a few months. As you can see from the flier, we have a full line up of art and activities on the first and second floors.
Nine months ago I had the opportunity to become part owner in an art gallery. Along with Tory Brokenshire and Bonnie Hull, the three of us took over the reigns of Compass Gallery, located at the Willamette Heritage Center, where all three of us have upstairs art studios. We came up with nine months worth of shows and each of us took on a monthly task (Tory created the show cards, Bonnie kept our website current, and I produced the press release). Then there was the Herculean task of creating a steady stream of art every month (for those of us who didn’t have art in basement vaults). Yesterday, we hung our final show, Passage: Caught in the Flow of Life, which about sums up our nine-month grand experiment.
We all enjoyed our time as gallery owners, and we especially loved having lunch together after hanging a new show. Yesterday was no exception. We enjoyed a long, leisurely lunch at Taproot in downtown Salem, plotting and scheming about future projects. You knew we weren’t going softly into the night, didn’t you?
Fortunately, Compass Gallery will continue, reverting back to the original visionary, Catherine Alexander. There are some other changes in the wind with the gallery. . . . but all of that is for another day, another post.
New year. New month. New gallery. New show. All of this means I have been busily and happily painting in plaster, oil, and cold wax.
I wrote about my new gallery last month, sharing the happy news that I was joining with Tory Brokenshire and Bonnie Hull to be the new owner-artists of the Compass Gallery. Our January show, Magnetic Pull, represents what art is tugging at our hearts as we begin 2016. All three of us recently wrote briefly about our individual magnetic pulls. I thought it would be fun for me to share what all three of us wrote:
Bonnie Hull
A person who makes art experiences the magnetic pull of the creative urge every day. As she goes on with it, the methods and media change, overlap . . . . collide maybe. “Mark-making” has become the single thread on which my own art practice hangs and I’m in the midst of discovering the commonality of what mark-making really means across a spectrum of activity. In 2016 my idea is to continue examining the relation between drawing and quilt making.
Tory Brokenshire
Magnetic pull is more than just a thought, it is a reality for anyone who is passionate about anything they do. I’m pulled towards the human figure, drawing, sewing, or sculpting in clay. Teaching and sharing figurative sculpture has also become a very important part of my passion. I believe everyone can feel a little bit of that pull to create.
Dayna Collins
Texture. Intersections. Excavation. Layers. Marks. Lines. Words. Color. Scratching. Scritching. These are the things that have pulled at me for the past several years. During 2016, I am hoping to dig deeper, incorporating more marks, more lines, more layers. A year of more, seeing how far I can push the processes I love.
The newly formed Compass Gallery has a fresh show in January with a fun twist. Throughout the month, weekly Wednesday – Saturday, from 11 am – 3 pm, one of us will be in the gallery working on our art and available to chat about our process, inspiration, and techniques. The show, Magnetic Pull, runs January 11-February 3, 2016.
Throughout January, join us as we work on our art in the gallery from 11-3 on Wednesdays through Saturdays. Here is the schedule:
January 13-16 Bonnie Hull will be stitching and drawing (and she invites people to bring their own projects and join her).
January 20-23 Tory Brokenshire will be creating whimsical characters in polymer clay.
January 27-30 Dayna Collins will be painting with her favorite mediums on pre-plastered boards: oil, cold wax, and oil pigment sticks.
Here are photos of some of my new work that will be included in the show:
The Absence of VoicesPeaceful SpaciousnessSeamless MovementA Jagged Mosaic
The exhibition begins January 11 and the artists will host a simple reception in the gallery on Thursday, January 14, 5:00-7:00 pm, as part of Art After Dark, when the second floor studios will be open and Max Marbles, bookbinder, will be in his first floor studio demonstrating a publishing technique. These events are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday-Saturday, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm. The exhibition will be on view through February 3.
Pinch me. I never thought I would have the opportunity to band together with two artists I love and admire to form our own gallery, but that is exactly what has transpired. Back in October, I shared the news that a group of five artists had formed a new art gallery cooperative in Salem. We had decided we would give it a trial run from October through December to see if it was something we all wanted to do. Three decided not to go ahead with the gallery, but we gained a new member, leaving three of us with the gallery. Besides yours truly, I’ve partnered with Bonnie Hull and Tory Brokenshire and we’re signing the lease on the gallery space before the end of the year.
We are already plotting and scheming for upcoming shows. In January it will be the three of us hanging our own art, plus the added bonus of each of us spending a week in the gallery creating art and being available to visit and share our process, techniques, and inspiration.
Our January schedule is:
January 13-16 Bonnie Hull will be stitching and drawing (and she invites people to bring their own projects and join her).
January 20-23 Tory Brokenshire will be creating whimsical characters in polymer clay.
January 27-30 Dayna Collins will be painting with her favorite mediums: oil, cold wax, and oil pigment sticks.
The exhibition begins January 11 and the artists will host a simple reception in the gallery on Thursday, January 14, 5:00-7:00 pm, as part of The Art Studios at Mission Mill Art After Dark. The second floor studios will be open and Max Marbles, bookbinder, will be in his first floor studio demonstrating a publishing technique. These events are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday-Saturday, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm. The exhibition will be on view through February 3.
If you want to follow along on our upcoming activities, we have a Facebook page. Click Compass Gallery Cooperative to head over there and click like. We also have a website, which we update with upcoming shows. Click HERE to be taken there.
